


Gavroche Alone

by protectmikasamuels2017



Series: Les Mis Modern Life [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gavroche is a little shit, Gen, I don't know what else to tag, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Bad At Titles, Les Amis all live together, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, Modern Era, gavroche is courfeyrac's child, gavroche is left by himself, home alone au, single parent courfeyrac au, sorry not sorry victor hugo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 03:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19264930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectmikasamuels2017/pseuds/protectmikasamuels2017
Summary: It's Christmas and everyone has plans. With plans to go to New York to celebrate everyone was looking forward to a fun-filled, stress-free holiday. Cosette had planned to enjoy New York shopping. Grantaire planned to get drunk. Enjolras planned on continuing his work on fighting for a better France.Forgetting Gavroche hadn't been in anyone's plans. But forget him they did.The Thenardiers certainly weren't expecting their plans of Christmas looting to be interrupted by a tiny gremlin. But yet they were.Home Alone AU. I swear it's better than how the summary makes it sound.





	Gavroche Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! A couple of months ago I posted on my tumblr (majorsoapfan) the following post:  
> 'I was watching Home Alone last night and all I could think about was a Les Mis Home Alone AU where Gavroche has to defend his and the Barricade Boys home - where they all live together including Musichetta, Eponine and Cosette, from the Thenardiers while the rest of the Amis (in particular Eponine and Courfeyrac as his terrified parents) are racing back to get him after accidently forgetting him.  
> Possibly featuring Inspector Javert as old man Marley.  
> I think I might write this.'  
> Well I did it! Quick note before you begin though: I have made one change to the prompt above while writing this, because at the time when the muse struck for this I was in the middle of planning out a whole Les Mis AU series and then when I was writing this, I decided to make this fic a part of that universe too so yeah I did have to make a change to the prompt. You can get more detail on it at the notes at the end of the fic because I don't like leaving long author notes at the start.  
> And just one or two quick things to note before you begin just to clarify: - Cosette and Enjolras are twins here.  
> \- Gavroche is Courfeyrac's biological child in this.  
> \- Gavroche is eight years old as well during the events happening here. I decided to keep him the same age as Kevin was in the Home Alone movie.  
> Now I tried really hard to correct any spelling or grammar mistakes that I made when writing this and even though I've proofread it several times it is possible that I've missed some. If so I apologise in advance. And now enjoy! And please leave a review, I'd love to know what you think!

 

* * *

What Grantaire loved most about Christmas was the alcohol deals. Now yeah, every few weeks during the rest of the year, some store that sold any type of liquor would be holding some sort of deal on some type of alcohol, but Christmas was the time where every store in the city - from supermarkets, to high brand stores, to cheap liquor stores would all be competing to be the one to have the lowest price possible on all the good stuff in their stock in order to encourage as many people as possible to spend their hard earned cash there. And Grantaire was no stranger to gracing every shop that he came across in his travels across the city with his presence at least once to check if there were any differences between the same brands in different stores. After all, what if some awful scum of the earth was watering down the bottles and ripping off poor unsuspecting patrons? Someone had to protect the public and this was a task Grantaire didn't mind occupying his time with.

Well, until Enjolras came back from work and he got the golden god's clothes off and into his bed. Then there was nothing on earth that could beat the feeling of an actual god panting and squirming underneath him, a mere mortal, as he moaned Grantaire's name as Grantaire claimed him.

Nothing.

Not even alcohol.

But Enjolras was working late tonight. So tonight to occupy his time after he had come back from doing his Christmas shopping, he had poured himself a drink, took both the drink and the bottle with him and headed up to Courfeyrac's room for some entertainment.

The group had decided to head out to New York to celebrate Christmas over there, but the other day Courfeyrac had been pulled aside by his superior at the law firm where him and Enjolras worked at to inform him that he had been put on some important case. It was a great opportunity apparently, something that would really advance his career. But it meant that he had to fly out to New York two weeks earlier than the rest of them to meet and work with the client. Of course, there was no way that Courf could bring with Gavroche out with him earlier than planned either. He couldn't leave the boy all on his own every day for two weeks and Gavroche still did have school to attend, so he was staying behind with the rest of them here. And the gamin was not happy with it. Hence his current entertainment.

"But I don't wanna stay here, I wanna go with you!" Gavroche whined, clinging to Courf's lower half like a limpet and pulling out the big guns of his puppy dog eyes. From his spot in the corner of Courf's room on the big beanbag that was still in one piece after twelve years and three relocations; Grantaire stifled a snort, semi-successfully. For all that the kid claimed that he was a mature adult and not a kid, he sure didn't mind acting like a baby if he thought that it would help him get what he wanted. And nine times out of ten Courf was a sure sucker for those puppy dog eyes alone.

Not this time though it seemed, as his friend carefully avoided his sons pleading gaze and continued to pull out shirts from his wardrobe; this time was probably going to be that very rare tenth time.

"Sorry Gav, but you're going to have to stay," Courf said, as he continued to organise what he was going to bring with him. "You, young man still have two weeks left of school, and you don't wanna miss all the fun stuff that's going to be happening then, do you?"

"That's just bourgeoise mind-control to make us slaves to capitalism and to the system!" Gavroche scoffed in response. Grantaire couldn't hide his snort of laughter this time around and even Courfeyrac was unable to resist a smile at that.

"You have been listening to Enjolras way too much little man" his friend chuckled, running a hand through Gav's long blond hair. "But come on, there'll be nothing for you to do in New York if you come out with me now. Nobody else will be over there yet and I'll be working at the office all day and won't be able to play with you. You'll just be sitting on a couch in some lobby all day, every day with nothing to do. It won't be fun."

"I'd make my own fun" Gavroche declared and Courf gave him an indulgent smile.

"Yeah, I'm sure that you would think of something" Grantaire muttered loud enough for the other two in the room to hear him. And Grantaire knew that Courf would have to agree with him on that. After all, the last time the boy had gone to Joly's practice (the man had been minding him for the day and he had to go to his office to pick up some paperwork so he brought Gavroche with him), he had been left alone in Joly's office for fifteen minutes after a co-worker of Joly's had spied an opportunity to quiz the good doctor about something - on what Joly didn't say.

However Joly did say that when he had come back to his office it was to his papers scattered all over the room, his books and files stacked in front of the door acting as some form of a barricade preventing him from opening the door any further than sticking his head in and his life sized plastic model skeleton lying on the ground, it's neck resting on the edge of the paper-cutter as Gavroche declared it a traitor to the nation and attempted to behead it.

And considering that that was the amount of carnage that the gamin had managed to create after being left alone for only fifteen minutes, Grantaire knew damn well that if he was given two weeks with his imagination and God only knew what else he could get his hands on to cause chaos, then the law firm might not be still standing by the time the rest of them got to New York. He was like Eponine and Enjolras in that sense. An innocent appearance that hid what true evil they were truly capable of.

"I don't doubt that" Courfeyrac agreed, "but you'll have much more fun here. All your things are here and so is everyone else to keep you company. Besides you don't want to miss your school play, do you? You've been practicing your lines for weeks now, they're counting on you! And you don't want to miss seeing Santa in the grotto, do you? Or the carollers or having massive snowball fights?"

Honestly Grantaire could see that Gavroche didn't really care if he did those things or not; but he could tell that Courf was massively upset that he was going to miss them even if he was trying to hide it. Gavroche was only eight but he was a fairly sceptical child about most things, especially when it came to things like Santa or the Easter Bunny. He had already debunked the legend of the Tooth Fairy although Marius still complained sometimes that his ears were still ringing from that air horn. Grantaire knew that Gavroche didn't have many years of childlike innocence left in him, so Courf was desperately trying to soak up as much of it as he could before it was gone forever.

Grantaire honestly felt bad for the man. Who the hell asks someone to fly out halfway across the world two weeks before Christmas to work on some case? Especially when they knew that the man was a single parent with a young child? Courfeyrac sadly, had no choice in the matter, not if he didn't want to destroy his future prospects within the firm, so when the boss says 'jump', you say 'how high'?

* * *

Eventually in the end, Courfeyrac managed to get his things together and ready to head for the airport. The fact that he was able to leave the house at all in the end was a Christmas miracle all in itself as Gavroche had been determined to be as completely unhelpful as possible. From hiding all of the papers related to the case, to destroying his suits with multi-coloured glitter (which he wouldn't have minded under normal circumstances, he loved glitter and those at the office knew and turned a blind eye to his style preferences, but the client was a big one for the firm and for the sake of his career, it wouldn't do to meet the client in a black suit covered in rainbow glitter), to getting Bahorel and Bossuet to help him ship his laptop across the lake in the local park. The laptop hadn't been damaged thankfully, but he had been soaked to the bone and almost turned into an ice statue by the time he got the blasted thing back.

Then when he had arrived back home after that ordeal, feeling half-dead from the cold, Gavroche smirking at the sight of him . . . that had been the last straw to be honest. Sure, Gavroche was a very cheeky and mischievous boy by nature, but his behaviour had gotten out of control over the last couple of days and Courfeyrac had had it.

Slamming the laptop down onto the coffee table, he had crossed the room in a few strides and grabbed the boy as he turned to flee, his fingers wrapping around Gavroche's arm tightly and yanking him up close to him. Dimly, he could see the worry and fear in his little boy's eyes, but he didn't pay much attention to it, too overcome with the pure fury pumping through his body to care.

_"You"_ he hissed, tightening his hold around Gavroche's arm and giving the boy a little shake for emphasis, "will _never_ do that again do you hear me? Ever! I have had it with you Gavroche, do you hear me? I've had it! I can barely look at you right now! You're being nothing but a pain. Can't you ever just behave? _Why do you have to be such a nuisance?!_ " he shouted, shaking the boy hard with those last few words.

He couldn't remember the last time he had ever been this angry, wasn't even sure if he had ever been this angry, red hot rage running through him as he glared down into Gavroche's eyes. However, the anger died rather quickly and was replaced by shame and guilt almost instantly as he saw the fear in Gavroche's face as his little boys' eye's started to water, a few tears already escaping from the corners of his eyes.

Oh God. Gavroche was _scared_ of him. The little boy that he had vowed to always love and protect was staring up at him like he was the most terrifying thing on the planet.

"Gav" he breathed, shame at his earlier outburst flooding through him, loosening his grip on Gavroche's arm while reaching towards his boy's face with his other hand. Whether it was to wipe away the tears running down his face or to stroke his hair, or maybe just to cup his face, he had no idea as the creak of a floorboard alerted him to the fact that they were not alone.

Enjolras was standing in the doorway, staring at Courfeyrac like he had never seen the man before. For a brief moment it brought up a flash of pride in him. He had managed the impossible and made their fearless leader speechless. The moment ended as he remembered the situation he was in. In that moment all they did was stare at each other and Gavroche took the moment of distraction to make a break for it.

Twisting his arm free of his father's loosened grip with a sob, Gavroche raced past Enjolras standing in the doorway and up the stairs, ignoring both his and Enjolras's calls for him. The slam of a door told him that his little boy was definitely not going to be willing to listen to him.

The silence that followed the door slamming seemed to stretch on for entirety.

Finally, though it was Enjolras who broke the silence.

"Jesus Christ Courfeyrac."

The tone was neutral and even, a rarity for the man for expressed his opinion no matter how unpopular. It gave no indication to his friend's true feelings but Courfeyrac still flinched back as if Enjolras had punched him.

"Don't start Enj, please don't start" surprising himself with the begging tone that his voice seemed to carry.

Unfortunately for him, Enjolras ignored his pleas.

"What on earth was that about? I don't think I've ever seen you act like that. Especially with Gavroche. Dear God, I think that if it was possible for you to be spitting fire then, then you would have been."

"I shouldn't have done that. I lost my temper" Courfeyrac muttered, more to himself than Enjolras as he stared at the stairs.

"That's putting it lightly" Enjolras snorted, as Courfeyrac made to move past him, intent on talking to Gavroche.

"Um, where do you think you're going?" Enjolras asked as he grabbed Courfeyrac's arm and held him in place.

"I need to speak to Gavroche. I scared him so bad just there I could see it in his eyes. Enj he's never scared of anything and he was looking at me like he's never seen anything more terrifying in his life. I need to-"

"No, you need to calm down and back away for a little while" Enjolras countered firmly in what Grantaire dubbed his 'nagging' voice. "He's not going to listen to you right now and you're still all wound up. Take a few deep breaths, take a step back and let the situation calm down a bit before you go to him. You need to calm down or else you'll just make everything worse."

Despite the seriousness of the situation and the guilt threatening to choke him, Courfeyrac couldn't help the half-hearted smirk that formed as he was reminded of all the times him, or Combeferre, or Joly had said something of a similar vein to Enjolras after they had to drag the man away from another fight with Grantaire or Javert or some random bigot. "Seems pretty ironic that you're the one giving me that advice."

"Seems pretty ironic that you're the one losing your temper" Enjolras shot back with a smirk of his own, turning towards the kitchen. "I'm going to make a start on dinner ok? Don't go to Gavroche yet, finish packing and let yourself calm down. Talk to him after dinner."

Enjolras didn't bother to wait for an answer, just turning around and walking towards the kitchen, but something in his posture told Courfeyrac that if he tried to ignore the advice and go to Gavroche anytime soon then Enjolras would separate the two of them by force if he had too. Slumping a bit in defeat, he turned to follow Enjolras into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee when the laptop caught his attention again.

It was just sitting there, perfectly untouched and not a speck of damage from its unexpected voyage and Courfeyrac's struggle to get it back unharmed from the lake. Totally unaware that it had been the catalyst for him losing his temper in the most vicious way that he ever had in his life. If anyone walked into the room right now, they would never have guessed that something as mundane as a laptop was responsible for Courfeyrac losing his temper in a similar vein to Enjolras and terrifying his son to tears because of it.

Courfeyrac wanted to smash it.

* * *

Gavroche didn't come down for dinner that night and no amount of coaxing from any of them could convince him to come out of his room. Grantaire tried to open the door by force but something that Gavroche had done to the door or dragged in front of it prevented the cynic from opening it even a smidge. He had also wedged something into the lock preventing Jehan from picking the lock either.

Courfeyrac wasn't sure whether to be mad or impressed.

He spent most of the night trying to get Gavroche to open the door and talk to him, but all his efforts were met with silence from the other side of the closed door. He wasn't even sure if Gavroche was even listening to him. Eventually he had to give up and go to bed to catch a few hours of sleep before he had to get up at 3 a.m. so he could make his flight on time.

Just before he left however, he found himself back at Gavroche's door, staring at the wooden barrier.

"Gav?" he called softly, quietly knocking on the door, taking care to not wake up anyone else up, especially Combeferre who would have to wake up in two hours to get to work at the hospital. "Gav can you open the door please?"

Silence was his only answer and when he tried opening the door in the hopes that Gavroche had removed his barricade at some point during the night; possibly to get some food or to go to the bathroom, he still couldn't move the door past the frame. Sighing in disappointment he called for Gavroche again.

"Gav? Can you please open the door?" Once again silence was his only answer. Disappointed, Courfeyrac leant his body against the frame as he continued.

"Look little buddy, I'm going to have to go now. But I don't want to go without saying goodbye; I'm so sorry for over-reacting earlier today. You shouldn't have done it, but I am so sorry for scaring you like that. I didn't mean to scare you. Please buddy you have to know that. I love you so much Gav, you have to know that."

Courfeyrac listened desperately for any signs that Gavroche was listening to him at all, but all he heard was the usual sounds of the house at night. Sighing, he leant his head against the door, wishing he could get through and hug the little boy on the other side.

"I have to go now buddy, I'll see you soon. Be good for everyone please. I love you Gav and I'm going to miss you so much" Courfeyrac sighed as he peeled himself away from the door, casting one last look at it before he left for the airport and New York.

* * *

Grantaire took a swing of his drink moodily. The whole house had the atmosphere of walking on eggshells for the last week no matter how hard everyone tried to pretend that everything was fine.

Ever since the disaster of the laptop sailing the day before Courfeyrac left for New York, things were incredibly tense. Bahorel and Bossuet were getting the worst of the judgement from Enjolras, Combeferre and Cosette for being what Combeferre had called 'enabler's'. Their protests had been falling on deaf ears to the rest of them. Which Grantaire found a bit stupid. Yeah, both of them probably should have been adults and they should have stopped Gavroche, not encourage him, but seriously it was like the rest of them had never met the gamin. Even if those two had said no, Gavroche would have found a way to do it all by himself. After all, he could think of a long list of times where the kid had done whatever he wanted, despite the rest of them telling him 'no'. The night he spent on the streets was the perfect example. Sometimes he thought that Gavroche's innocent appearance prevented the rest of his friends from remembering the true amount of chaos he could do if he wanted to. He was Eponine's child after all.

Face of angel, spawn of devil.

Despite the massive elephant in the room, everyone tried to pretend that everything was fine. They went to work, they all took turns bringing Gavroche to and from school and any other commitments that the boy had, they ate their meals together, they made plans for New York.

The elephant became impossible to ignore though whenever Courfeyrac phoned back from the States. When he did, then the gamin would make himself scarce and no amount of searching could offer up his hiding place.

Joly tried talking it out with him, Combeferre tried reasoning with him, Cosette tried bribing him, Bahorel, Feuilly and Bossuet devoted themselves to trying to find his hiding place; so far, they weren't successful, but they did find Jehan's missing mouse, Mr Checkers (who thankfully hadn't invited any mates to come around and was now safely back in Jehan's room).

Nothing would work, the kid refused to talk about it, not with his dad, not with any of them. (Although he did take longer than usual when he was chatting to Eponine about his week when he brought him on Sunday, so it was possible that he was talking to someone about it. Even if that someone couldn't offer any advice.) He also seemed more willing to pick a fight with the Inspector if his skulking around the front yard until the man came home and then doing something to annoy him - snowballs thrown at the back of his head so that the melting water would drip down the back of his neck and into his clothes; water thrown down his front steps so that he'll slip whenever he's walking up to his house, building giant snowmen in front of his driveway preventing him from parking his car.

Grantaire couldn't find it in him to put a stop to the behaviour either. He knew he should but at the same time he knew that the gamin was just upset and was just trying to deal with it the only way he knew how. He had been devastated when Courf had left apparently without saying goodbye, although Chetta was swearing on both Joly and Bossuet's souls that she had heard him in the middle of the night trying to talk to Gavroche; and his refusal to talk to his dad or any of them about it was causing his feelings to be bottled up. It reminded Grantaire uncomfortably of when he was at his absolute lowest all those years ago drowning all of his grief and guilt in alcohol.

Luckily though, Gavroche was much too young to get his hands on alcohol to drown his feeling that way. Unluckily for Javert, the way Gavroche _had_ chosen to express his feelings was by tormenting him.

He would have felt guiltier for not putting a stop to it if he didn't know that the others were doing the exact same.

Finally, a few days before they were supposed to leave for New York while everyone was getting ready to go to Gavroche's school play, Enjolras got a call from his superiors at work. Apparently, they wanted him to go over the next day to help Courfeyrac with the case. Enjolras had argued against the sudden change of plans but in the end, there was no changing their minds so Enjolras had to call up the airline to try and rearrange his flight.

Unfortunately, with it being so close to the holidays all he was able to get was for late that night.

"Look, I am so sorry about this Ferre" Enjolras muttered as he finished packing his bags haphazardly, before moving onto checking that he had his passport and other papers, "are you sure that you can manage everything while I'm gone?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it" Ferre assured him while double-checking that Enjolras had packed everything in his suitcase and folding it up much more neatly than Enjolras had. "I think that I can handle the house for a couple of days and get us to the airport in one piece. Can't be that different from herding cats."

"Hey!" Grantaire objected, before thinking back over the statement and the way the rest of them acted in most situations. "Ok, yeah you're probably right" he conceded.

Enjolras turned his head away from them both in what he tried to pretend was a disapproving manner, but Grantaire caught the beginnings of a smile pull at the corners of Enjolras's mouth before his view of the golden god was blocked.

"Ok, I think you do have everything" Combeferre said, straightening up, the contents of Enjolras's suitcase looking much neater then they were a few minutes ago, "well you have everything that isn't related to work. I am staying away from all of that, because I am much more likely to mess it all up then be of any help. Look I'm going to go help Feuilly with dinner, it's our turn tonight, are you going to stay for some, or -"

"No, I'll just pick something up in the airport. I'm going in a few minutes anyway. Just as soon as I finish packing these" Enjolras replied, distractedly as he wrestled with a couple of files in his arms, trying to get them into some kind of order, before putting them into his travel bag with his laptop.

"You sure?" Combeferre questioned, pushing his glasses further back up his nose as they started to slide down again.

"Yes, I want to get checked in as early as possible there to avoid any delays. Besides my flight's leaving in less than four hours. And the airport's going to be mental because it's so close to Christmas. The sooner I get there, the better."

Combeferre just nodded at the reasoning before turning to give Enjolras a hug in farewell, before he went downstairs to help Feuilly with the dinner, leaving the two of them alone. Everyone else was down in the living room watching some Christmas film on tv except for Jehan and Gavroche who were outside the last time Grantaire saw them, celebrating Gavroche doing a great job that night in his play by making snow angels in the front yard.

Finally, Enjolras managed to get his papers in order as he zipped up his carrier bag holding them and set it down beside his suitcase on the bed, before turning to face Grantaire.

"Heading off now?" Grantaire questioned, as he got up from the chair at Enjolras's desk where he had been watching the whole thing and walked up to the man standing at the foot of his bed.

"Yes" Enjolras replied, "like I said, it'll be rushed at the airport. The sooner I-" Grantaire didn't bother to let him finish the sentence as he cut him off with a kiss. He heard Enjolras gasp slightly before he melted into said kiss, winding his arms tightly around Grantaire's neck and returning the affection eagerly.

This, Grantaire couldn't believe that he got to have. Enjolras, the most perfect man in existence was kissing him, was letting little sighs out as Grantaire pressed up close against him, was winding his fingers through Grantaire's bird nest of hair. Grantaire didn't know what he did to deserve such magnificence, but he was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

After all, how often did such imperfect mortals such as him get to enjoy the affections of a god like the one before him?

Finally, the thundering of boots up the stairs made them break away from each other just in time to avoid getting caught by Gavroche and Jehan as they raced each other around the house.

The moment was over. The little piece of heaven on earth was gone. Once they both came back to reality again, all Grantaire could really do after that was watch as Enjolras hugged Gavroche and Jehan goodbye with the promise of seeing them in less than a week, before he grabbed his coat and bags and went downstairs to bid everyone else goodbye as well. When it came to him, all Enjolras did was look at him and nod, but Grantaire saw the affection in his eyes before he left. Silently he returned the nod without any of his usual quips to their golden-haired leader.

After all, he was still trying to figure out why someone as perfect as Enjolras would hold so much affection for someone like Grantaire. Why someone so whole would care about someone so broken?

* * *

The morning they were supposed to leave for New York, Combeferre woke up peacefully with a sigh as he stretched slowly, content to stay under the warm covers for as long as possible. He was so tired that he didn't want to ever get up, the outside world was freezing cold and his bed was just so warm. It was times like these when he could understand why Bahorel and Jehan didn't want to leave their beds in the morning.

Idlily he wondered what time it was. The sun was up but his room faced the east, so hopefully he still had a few minutes to sleep before the alarm went off and he had to get up to make sure that everyone got to the airport on time in order to make the plane.

Slowly he turned to the other side where his alarm clock was stationed to check the time only to frown in confusion when all he saw was four red dashes flashing on and off instead of the time.

Wait that was strange, he had set his alarm last night before he had gone to bed, the only time it ever displayed those dashes instead of the time was when-

Was when there had been a power outage.

Quickly he shot up all tiredness now replaced by fear as he grabbed his phone which had been charging beside the alarm clock.

'Please still be early, please still be early' he prayed desperately.

9:23 a.m. was what his phone displayed.

For a moment all he could do was stare at the now blank phone screen in shock as reality settled in on him.

Then he shot out of the bed like it was on fire and raced out of his room.

They had overslept. They were running late.

They had two and a half hours to make their plane and the airport was an hour away.

They had an hour and a half to get their things together, make it past customs, get to their gate and board the plane.

They were so screwed.

Combeferre cursed himself furiously in his mind for not setting up a back-up alarm on his phone. His inefficiency was coming back to haunt them!

He could only hope that everyone would be ready to go in around ten minutes.

Cosette was the first one to open her door to the constant banging and shouting that he was doing.

"Combeferre" she moaned. "What's going on?"

"The power went out last night" he blurted out as fast as possible. "The alarm didn't do off. We overslept. It's half-nine Cosette. Half-nine."

He saw Cosette's widen with the realisation, but he didn't stay to see the rest of her reaction, already running to Joly, Bossuet's and Musichetta's door and banging to get their attention. Although he did hear her scream at Marius to get up and the unmistakeable thud of what had to be Marius hitting the ground. Well, she'll handle that.

The entire house was in chaos. Everyone was running around, desperately trying to get everything ready. They were almost ready to go when Cosette came running up to him in a panic.

"Ferre, the tickets, we can't find the tickets, did you move them?"

"No" he said, dread filling his stomach. "They're not above the microwave?"

"No" Cosette replied, panicked, "they're gone, we don't know where!"

Combeferre swore under his breath, before taking off for the kitchen. "Split up, start looking!" he called over his shoulder, not bothering to check if they were doing it. Cosette was right, the tickets weren't where they left them a few days ago or in the surrounding areas. Cursing furiously not even caring for once about who might hear him, he checked all the drawers before checking above the shelves, keeping an eye on the clock the whole time. It was past quarter to ten, they were going to have to leave soon if they wanted any chance of making that plane.

Suddenly he heard Marius's delighted voice from the hallway, "I found them! They were in the top drawer in the press in the hallway!"

For the first time that morning, Combeferre felt relief run through him. "Ok, let's go!" He shouted, "we're already late as it is, we need to move now!"

For once in his life everyone seemed to listen to him, as they grabbed their bags and headed towards the front door, Grantaire keeping in step besides him.

"There's no way we're going to make this plane Ferre" Grantaire grumbled as he struggled with his suitcase's attempts to twist and topple over.

"Think positive R" Combeferre muttered breathlessly as he locked up the house behind everyone and headed towards the cars.

"Alright" he heard R mutter under his breath, "I'm positive that there's no way we're going to make this plane."

Combeferre would have replied to that but he was distracted by some repairmen who had been working on restoring the power was it? Saying something that it was back, but the phone lines would be messed up for another day? Honestly, he wasn't listening for once. Who cares anyway? The phones were already disconnected and none of them would be here for the next few days to actually make calls, and by the time they were back the problem would be fixed anyway.

Now hopefully they'll get to the airport without any major catastrophes.

* * *

Cosette sighed with relief once the plane left the ground and started to gain height. They did it. Her heart was in her throat the whole time and she was certain that she had lost years off her life, but they did it. They had gotten to the airport and made their flight on time. Beside her Marius yawned, as he set his chair back a bit, taking care not to crush the person sitting behind him.

"Well we did it" he murmured sleepily, grabbing her hand and interlacing it with his. "New York, here we come."

Cosette giggled and kissed his cheek fondly. This was going to be the best holiday ever. She was going to New York with the man she loved and all her family to celebrate Christmas, she didn't have to worry about anything, work related or otherwise. The days leading up to Christmas were going to be full of nothing else but shopping, good food, taking in the attractions of New York and spending quality time with her family. Despite the utter madness that was this morning, they were now in the clear.

"We did it is right" Bahorel groaned as he turned to face them, leaning over from across the aisle. "And don't breathe a word to Enjolras about what happened with the alarm. Or else we'll all be getting lectured about not setting our own alarms. And I don't want to start my holiday off on that. At least not before I get drunk."

Cosette hummed in agreement as she rooted in her handbag for her book. It was the latest by her favourite author that she had bought for herself as an early Christmas present. Just as she was about to grab it however her attention was caught by the packet of wine gums in her bag. She pulled them out with a frown. When had she bought these? She hated wine gums, whenever she was on a plane she always sucked mints to help her ears to pop, she could never stand the taste of wine gums.

"Are you ok, dear?" she heard Marius ask. She gave a vague hum in reply as she continued to examine the sweets. She must have bought them for a reason, but why couldn't she remember?

Suddenly she got a nagging feeling in the back of her head, the kind she usually got whenever she had forgotten something important. Her frown deepened as she rubbed her thumb over the packaging of the sweets as she tried to remember what it was.

Her bag was packed yesterday morning with everything she had chosen to bring with her, so it couldn't have been that. Was it her toiletries? No, she remembered grabbing that during the whole rush that morning. Was it her money or her credit cards? No, she saw her purse just there in her bag. Did she forget to do something before she left? Desperately she tried to think but to her dismay her mind her blank. Finally, she turned to Marius and Bahorel who were still talking quietly amongst themselves.

"Did we forget something?"

* * *

The house was dead silent. That was the first thing that Gavroche noticed as he opened the door leading to the attic and stepped out into the hall. Last summer he had found an old crawl space that lead up to the attic. It was where he spent most of his time these days when he wanted to be left alone or if he wanted to hide something from the others. (It was without a doubt his favourite place in the whole house, no one else knew about it but him.)

The house was never really quiet. When you lived in a house with twelve other people, your home was never silent. Someone was always doing something. Whether it was Uncle Enjolras loudly talking about the latest protest for their cause, or Uncle R and Bahorel singing songs while drinking themselves stupid, or Aunt Cosette and Uncle Marius slow dancing to those sappy Disney songs right in front of the television or as Jehan taught Uncle Feuilly yoga in an attempt to help the man to relax.

Quietly Gavroche approached Uncle Combeferre's room. He was always up whenever he was. It was probably just really early still, and everyone was just sleeping before they had to get up and get ready for the airport. Knowing him, Uncle Combeferre was probably studying something instead of lazing about in bed. He always was.

Whenever Gavroche had woken up earlier then everyone else in the past and his dad wasn't there to play with, he would almost always run to Combeferre. It wasn't due to preference or anything, it was just that, everyone else would probably just want him to come into their bed and go back to sleep and yeah, he did like cuddling with them, but he wanted to be up and having fun, not lying in bed wide awake with nothing to do. That's why Uncle Combeferre was so great. He was always awake when Gavroche was. Whether it was because he had just gotten back from a night shift at the hospital or he had just gotten up early in general. And he never tried to make him go back to sleep.

Sometimes they would go down to the kitchen together and make a start on breakfast for everyone, or they would go down to the living room and Combeferre would watch the morning news while Gavroche would play on his Nintendo, unless he heard something interesting. But most of the time they would sit at Combeferre's desk together as he studied various medical things that Gavroche always tried to remember but nearly always forgot not long after breakfast unless it was something really gross or cool. Then not long after he started going to school, Uncle Combeferre would instead have books about letters and numbers and they would spend the mornings together helping him improve his reading, writing and numbers until he was a genius with them.

So, he quickly flung open the door to Uncle Combeferre's room, half-expecting to see him sitting at his desk as he studied his textbook, making notes about something either very cool or very boring.

But he wasn't there.

Gavroche frowned in confusion. Uncle Combeferre was always here in the morning. But there was no one at his desk or anywhere else in the room, the blinds were open like they always were as soon as he got up and his bed wasn't made at all. It was all just crumpled, like he had just gotten out of it.

Wait maybe he was in the bathroom?

Quickly, Gavroche ran towards the nearest bathroom, but the door was wide open, and nobody was there. A quick search of the rest of the rooms found the exact same situation as Uncle Combeferre's room. Completely empty, bed not made just a big mess of blankets, no sign of anyone at all. Finally, he yanked on his shoes, unlocked the door and went outside.

The cars weren't there at all.

It was with that, that Gavroche finally put the clues together.

They had left.

They went to New York and left him behind.

They didn't want him to come.

They didn't want him.

Nobody wanted him.

Furiously blinking the tears out of his eyes before he did something stupid like bawling like a baby; he marched back inside and slumped down on the couch. Furiously he brooded on the situation, before with a cry of frustration he yanked off his shoes and flung them in random directions. One of them hit Aunt Cosette's statue which she had made as part of a project years ago which toppled to the ground and caused a loud 'BANG!' through the entire house as the top part of it broke apart from the bottom of it. Holding his breath, Gavroche waited for the running of feet to come and investigate the noise, waited for Aunt Cosette's shriek at the damage done to her statue, waited for someone to give out to him and punish him.

There was nothing. Just pure silence.

Nobody was home.

Nobody knew he just broke Aunt Cosette's statue.

Nobody was here to give out to him or punish him.

Nobody was here to stop him from doing whatever he wanted.

Gavroche felt the smirk start to take over his face and made no attempt to stop it.

Well who was going to stop him? So what if they didn't want him, he didn't need them. He could take care of himself just fine.

He was going to have some fun.

* * *

Cosette sighed with relief when she got out of the taxi in front of the hotel. The flight was long and all the hassle of getting their luggage and through customs, as well as getting a taxi and through New York traffic made the whole day feel like it had gone on for years instead of hours. At least customs hadn't pulled away any of the group for questioning this side of the ocean either. Small mercies. She couldn't wait to go unpack, have a meal that wasn't horrific airport food and a drink before spending the rest of the day catching up with Papa. It was the perfect plan for a perfect day. But the nagging feeling that she had forgotten something was still there. But despite her best efforts she still couldn't put her finger on what it was exactly. Her, Marius and the rest of them had racked their brains trying to figure out what exactly it was that they had forgotten, but no one had been able to put their finger on it yet.

It was driving Cosette mad. She knew she had forgotten something. She knew it was something important, but she just couldn't figure out what. Marius had assured her that if it was absolutely necessary then one of them would have remembered but Cosette wasn't so sure. They had left in such a rush this morning, it had been pure adrenaline that had gotten them to the gate on time. Their minds were probably still blocking the parts of their memories that would actually tell them what it was that they had forgotten. She wasn't exactly sure if she wanted to remember or not what it was at this point either. Ignorance was bliss, right?

After the chaos of the airports, checking-in to the hotel was mercifully quick and simple and soon Cosette was finishing unpacking her and Marius's bags while Marius was on the phone to his father assuring him that they had arrived safely when her phone chimed with message alerts from her father and brother. She couldn't help but smile at the simple messages from Papa saying that he had been held up at the office but would be there shortly and a similar one from Enjolras saying that he was finished at his own firm and was on his way to the hotel and that Courf would be coming not long after. Cosette then checked the group chat to see the agreement between everyone to head downstairs for a drink at the bar whenever they were all finished packing.

Musichetta, Joly, Bossuet and Combeferre were already at the bar by the time she and Marius arrived and in Chetta's and Bossuet's case already making a start on the drinking. Ordering a pink gin and tonic she settled in to listen to the chatter, as the rest of her family joined them.

The bubble was burst however when a frantic Jehan came running into the area, almost crashing into Bahorel if they hadn't put their arms out to stop them in time though. They looked frantic. And terrified and almost like they were going to vomit.

Grantaire was the first to speak. "Hey Jehan, what happened?"

"Gavroche" was Jehan said.

"What?" Feuilly questioned, as Cosette started to get a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Gavroche" was all Jehan repeated as they struggled to catch their breath. Cosette's blood immediately turned to ice.

Gavroche, Gavroche, who was watching the little boy? Yes, everyone was in a rush this morning thanks to the power outage overnight, but she was certain that someone was looking after him and helping him get his things together. It wasn't her and Marius, she knew that, they had been tearing the house apart looking for the missing plane tickets, but she had thought that Grantaire who was Gavroche's other godparent and one of the two that Courf had asked especially to mind his little boy during the last two weeks or Combeferre, who Enjolras had asked to keep an eye on things, were minding him.

But, wait, she hadn't seen Gavroche at all when they were at the airport, running like mad for their flight, she hadn't seen him on the plane, she hadn't seen him when they got off the plane, or in the taxi ride to the hotel. Looking around slowly now, she still couldn't see any sign of the little boy.

That's when it hit her.

She hadn't seen Gavroche since last night.

Gavroche had never come to the U.S. with them.

Gavroche never came to the airport with them.

Gavroche hadn't left the house with them.

Gavroche was still at home.

All alone.

That was what they had forgotten.

Oh God.

And with that revelation she felt her heart completely shrivel up in her chest and her drink slip out of hand where it crashed onto the table.

"Sweet God!" she shrieked. "Gavroche! W-w-we forgot him!"

All around her, she could see the other's faces as her words sank in. She could see everyone's faces bear a mixture of shock, horror and realisation as the truth dawned on them as well. But before she could say anything, someone spoke up from behind her, filling her with dread.

"I'm sorry, you did _what?_ "

* * *

Courfeyrac walked into the bar area to a very usual scene of Enjolras ranting about something. What was odd about it though was the expressions of everyone else around him.

They were all wearing a mixture of guilt, horror and shame on their faces. Even Grantaire. Who always looked doubtful and cynical whenever their leader was ranting about the injustices of the world and his plans to help build a better France - that's when he wasn't actively poking holes in Enjolras' plans and making fun of the man. But now the cynic and drunk of the group was wearing a look of complete shame. What the hell had happened?

As he walked over to the group, he frowned when he couldn't see Gavroche with them at all. But then again, his boy could just be in the bathroom or maybe up in one of the other's hotel rooms. Or more likely, he said he was there and in reality, was somewhere else entirely in the hotel causing chaos. Right now, though he couldn't care less about any potential mischief that his little boy could be doing. He could be terrorising the President of the United States and he wouldn't get mad or lecture him. All he wanted to do was find Gavroche and hold him tight and apologise for what had happened before he had left for New York. For losing his temper so badly and scaring him. He hadn't been able to get the terrified look on Gavroche's face out of his head for the last two weeks.

Or the tears falling down his son's face.

The last two weeks had been hell. The clients were unbearable, the hours were long and the first few days he was walking around with a cloudy mind as he fought to overcome the jetlag. There had been times during the last few weeks where the case had frustrated him to the point where he was almost tearing his beautiful hair out in anger. Only having Enjolras here with him the last few days had driven him from the temptation of committing murder. But what had made the whole trip even worse was the fact that Gavroche had refused to speak to him at all. He didn't want to skype him or talk to him on the phone or snap him on one of the other's snapchats. According to the others he refused to talk about him at all. Just sullen silences whenever one of them had brought the matter up and hiding in hard to reach places whenever Courf had phoned home.

However, as he was almost upon his friends he actually started listening to what Enjolras was raving about and he felt every hair on his body rise unexpectedly in response as he sensed something wasn't right.

"There are ten of you! And not one of you remembered! How could you?! How is Courfeyrac-"

"How am I what?" Courfeyrac questioned interrupting Enjolras' rant, as everyone's heads whipped around to face him.

"Courf" Combeferre breathed, standing up slowly, "Courf, we-"

"Courf, you might want to sit down" Enjolras interrupted, placing his hands gently but firmly on his shoulders and guiding him to sit down in front of the others. Confused, he looked to the others in the hopes of an explanation, but strangely they all just avoided his eyes. Marius looked like he was going to be sick.

Slowly he sat down in the offered seat, looking up at Enjolras, hoping that he might offer some insight into what was going on, but his friend's face was almost unreadable. The only expression he could read was pure fury. As soon as he was sitting down, Enjolras whipped around to face the rest of their friends again.

"Well go on!" He demanded. "Tell him! Tell him what you did!"

Tell him, tell him what? What had happened?

Suddenly it hit him and he tensed up with fear.

"Is it Gavroche?" He blurted out, already imaging scenario after scenario of Gavroche hurt, missing, ill, in his mind. "Did something happen, is he hurt? Wha-"

Combeferre gingerly put up a hand in a silent gesture for him to be quiet which he obeyed, eager to find out if something happened to Gavroche. But it couldn't be too bad right? They would have told him before now if that was the case.

"Yes. It's about Gavroche" Combeferre began hesitantly as Courfeyrac seized up in horror. He was already half out of his seat ready to grab Combeferre and demand he tell him where Gavroche was, what had happened to him, when Enjolras was grabbing his shoulders again and pushing him back down into the seat. He glared at Enjolras for a moment before he turned his attention back to Combeferre.

"What? What's happened to him? Is he sick? Did he hurt himself? Do you guys do some-"

"Courf!" Combeferre pleaded with him. Reluctantly he fell silent and Ferre took a deep breath and paused for a moment like he was trying to delay the inevitable. Finally, he started to speak again. Very slowly though like he was drawing out the moment for as long as possible. "Courf, the thing is -"

"We forgot him!" Marius blurted out quickly. The group got deathly quiet as Courfeyrac turned his head very slowly to Marius, who carried on with his spiel even though he was looking more and more like he was going to vomit all over his shoes. "We slept past the alarm and it was all just a rush and we misplaced the plane tickets, so we were all going nuts trying to find them and then we were running out the door and none of us remembered him and now he's back home all alone and Courf we are so sorry -"

Whatever else that Marius had to say at that point was cut off as Courfeyrac burst into laughter.

"Oh come on guys, no you didn't" he snorted. "You wouldn't do that. Nice try, now where is he really? What actually happened?"

"Um, um Courf?" Feuilly began timidly, "it's not a joke. We really did forget him. And we are so sorry."

Courfeyrac was about to deny it again, his response on the tip of his tongue, until he got a good proper look at the faces of his family. None of them could meet his eyes. They all avoided his gaze instead settling for looking at the table or the ground or the ceiling or some other nearby object. None of them looked like they were kidding. Even Marius and Jehan, the ones who couldn't keep a straight face whenever they were telling a joke didn't look like they were trying to hide their laughter. They looked truly ashamed.

It was the looks on their faces that made him realise that it wasn't a trick, they weren't messing around. The nod that Enjolras had given him when he had looked to him for confirmation was the final nail of the coffin.

"You forgot Gavroche?" he questioned, all traces of humour gone from his voice. Silently they all nodded.

For a moment all he could do was sit silently as the truth washed over him. They had forgotten him.

His friends, his family had left Gavroche at home.

They had forgotten his child; his young, vulnerable eight-year-old child.

His child was now all alone back home thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.

Gavroche was home alone when the news had been full of reports of armed criminals breaking into houses in the area to rob them.

Gavroche could be in danger right that moment.

He snapped his head up to glare at his friends and they all flinched back scared once they saw the look in his eyes. Slowly, he made to get off the chair.

"Courf?" Cosette tried timidly.

"I'm going to fucking kill you."

* * *

Jean Valjean was a man who, now approaching the older side of the age spectrum, thought that he had seen it all by now. After all, very few people could boast to living through his experiences. He had been a young boy with much promise to go far in life, to an inmate serving his time in a corrupted prison, to a man living on the streets struggling to survive from day to day, to a respectable business owner and mayor, to marrying the love of his life and being a father to two amazing children. Yes at this point, he had definitely lived through it all and it was almost impossible to surprise him anymore.

Well that's what he had thought.

Apparently, there was always a first time for everything.

"You forgot him?" he said flatly, the tone making it sound like more of a statement then a question. Cosette nodded sadly, her gaze at the ground.

"How?" Again sounding more a statement then a question.

"W-well everyone was just in such a rush, an-and I don't really know how it happened, I was just rushing through the house searching for the plane tickets and he - he just slipped my mind and-".

"And no one thought about him at all."

Cosette winced before nodding again.

"Yes."

"Cosette you're my daughter and I love you, but for the love of God, how did out of a group of ten people not one of you think about him?"

"I don't know" Cosette cried, "oh I'm so ashamed! He's all alone back there, he must be so confused. Do we even have enough food at home for him to eat? What if he runs out? What if the power goes out again and he can't turn on the heating? What if someone tries to break in? What if h-"

"Cosette shut up please" the one called Musichetta whispered, drawing Valjean's attention up from his conversation with his daughter, to see Courfeyrac standing at the door, suitcases in hand.

"No please Cosette go on, continue listing out every single fear that has passed through my head ever since you told me that you left my little boy at home. Please keep going, maybe you might know a few that I possibly could have missed" Courfeyrac snarled, surprising Valjean with the amount of venom in his voice. He had never seen Courfeyrac like that at all ever since he's known the lad. He was always so charming and carefree. And as much as he wanted to leap to Cosette's defence and give the boy a verbal smackdown he refrained himself because: 1) Cosette could take care of herself and would not appreciate him inserting himself in to defend her when she could do it herself. 2) Just like the rest of them - bar Enjolras who wasn't there, Cosette did hold some responsibility for leaving Courfeyrac's boy at home. She did deserve some of the lad's anger, and 3) None of what the boy said were lies in any case. He had every right to be terrified for Gavroche's safety. Especially because of those recent break-ins.

But truth be told, Valjean was more concerned for the burglars' safety then he was for the child's.

He's heard the stories. If that kid had time to prepare for the threat, then they wouldn't stand a chance.

That or if he just knew where Musichetta or Bahorel hid their guns. Either would be fine.

"Ok, Courf look" the one with the glasses started, Combeferre wasn't it? Despite knowing the group for years, there was just so many of them that Valjean couldn't help but get muddled with who was who at times. "You have every right to be mad at us, of course we totally deserve it-"

"No, I'm not."

Combeferre paused in his placating speech to look at his friend in confusion. "What?"

"I'm not mad" Courfeyrac repeated, in a very calm tone, a complete 180 from the way he was a few seconds ago.

"You're not?" Enjolras scoffed from where he had been deep in conversation with Grantaire.

"No, I'm not," Courfeyrac repeated in that strange calm voice. "I was mad when Bossuet took Gavroche to the park. And came back with the wrong child."

"It was an honest mistake" the one that Valjean assumed was Bossuet tried to justify.

"That was a girl" Courfeyrac deadpanned and killed that defence dead. "I was mad when Grantaire wasn't paying attention to Gav and he ended up drinking half a bottle of mulled wine and he had to go to hospital to get his stomach pumped."

Valjean cast a glance at Grantaire out of the corner of his eye as the man in question hung his head in shame. He had heard about that. He felt a bit bad for the man, it had clearly been an accident, but Courfeyrac clearly wasn't in the mood to listen to any arguments. He knew that if he was in Courfeyrac's position right now then he might have already let his fists fly out of anger before now.

"But this, this" Courfeyrac continued, "I'm furious. I can't believe you. Gav isn't a charger or a bag or anything like that. He's a child. He's eight years old and you forgot him! You forgot him! There's no excuse for what you did. You left him all alone and there has been reports of people breaking into homes in the area? What if they target our house? Gav's all alone there. Anything could happen to him."

"You're right, Courf, we're all ashamed, there is no excuse for what we did" the other doctor, Jolly was it? Joseph? Jolles? said.

"I know" Courfeyrac snorted clearly not willing to listen anymore. "I'm going to the airport, I'm taking the first possible flight home."

"But the next available flight to Paris isn't until Christmas Eve!" Jehan objected.

"I'm not waiting that long" Courfeyrac retorted. "I'll fly somewhere else and then get a connecting flight or rent a car and drive if I have to, but I'm not waiting any longer then I absolutely have to. I have to get back to Gavroche."

He glared at everyone in the room as if to try and dare them to stop him. Wisely they kept their mouths shut. Only Enjolras made any movement towards the man.

"Stay safe. Let us know how you're getting on" was all he said. Courfeyrac paused for a moment before nodding and pulling his boy in for a hug. The two parted after a moment and Courfeyrac grabbed his bags and without a glance for the rest of his friends left for the lobby.

The room was dead silent after he left.

Finally, Grantaire groaned sliding down on his seat as he covered his eyes with his hand, "well that couldn't have gone any worse."

"I think it could have" Valjean spoke up. "If I had been in his position I probably would have hit you."

* * *

Gavroche stretched out on the recliner, for the first time in his life not having to share it with anyone else. This had been one of the best days of his life. Nobody was around to tell him what to do or what not to do.

He got to run around the house causing chaos without someone telling him to slow down or be quiet. He got to watch all the tv that he wanted without somebody snatching the remote away and saying that what he wanted to watch was inappropriate or going to rot his brain out. He got to eat whatever he wanted without anyone telling him to eat some fruit and vegetables or that all that sugar was going to rot his teeth out. He got to do everything that he ever wanted to do around the house without anyone else around to try to spoil his fun.

The movie playing on tv was one that had anyone else been home, he wouldn't have been allowed to watch. It was one full of violence and guns and blood. He loved it. His pizza would be here any minute. An extra-large with all his favourite toppings and he wouldn't have to share it with anyone else, as well as a massive bottle of Coke that he could drink as much of as he wanted. And he had a couple of Jehan's horror films to put on once he was finished with this film.

Best day ever.

Later that night as he was preparing for bed, he hesitated for a moment before going into his dad's room. He had been avoiding the room ever since he had left for New York although he had snuck in the first night to grab one of his shirts for comfort.

It was ridiculous to be scared of anything, he knew that, but he couldn't help feeling like something bad was going to happen. He tightened his grip on his dad's shirt as he brought it up to his chest. There was nothing to be scared of. He turned to leave the room to head back to his own, but at the last moment he stopped. He thought about it for a moment before turning and getting into his dad's bed. He reached over and turned off the light in his dad's room, plunging the room into darkness except for the hallway lights shining from the bottom of the door. Gavroche couldn't find it in him to turn them off.

It wasn't because he was scared (as if). And he didn't miss the others. Not at all. Why would he? They clearly weren't missing him, and he could take care of himself just fine. He didn't need them. But having the lights on was just . . . normal. The lights were always on when he went to bed. That's how it always was.

Burrowing under the covers, Gavroche held the shirt tighter to him as he settled down to sleep.

"Night dad" he whispered before he closed his eyes.

* * *

Gavroche could feel the sweat dripping down his back as he walked up the hill of the cemetery. He always hated walking up that hill because no matter how fast or slow he walked or what else he did to try and make it better; his legs were almost always killing him by the time he got to the top. It seemed extra hard today, but he didn't know if that was because of the snow and ice on the ground or because of the cart that he had found abandoned on the street that he was pushing. It was wooden and very old but still in great condition. It was lying on the curb, clearly unwanted and Gavroche did want it.

He had piled all his shopping from this morning into it. He had bought a couple of microwave meals for his dinner and some bread, milk, eggs and other things that he needed for the next few days. He had used the emergency stash of money that was hidden on the bottom of the tiny old-fashioned clock on the mantlepiece in the living room. Uncle Marius said it was called a grandfather clock. He supposed that it was a gift that Marius's grandfather had given him to try and make Uncle Marius talk to him again.

Marius's grandfather needed better gift ideas.

Finally, he reached the top of the hill and his destination, setting the cart down gently, making sure not to break the carton of eggs that he had bought. Sighing in relief he grabbed the bouquets of flowers that he bought at the supermarket and walked over to the two graves standing side by side.

"Hi mom!" he greeted cheerily as he carefully set the flowers down at their intended sites. "I know that you didn't think that you were going to see me this week huh? Well, change of plans! Everyone else left and forgot about me, so I'm having Christmas at home! And I'm doing ok! Well the house is still standing and the cops haven't come yet, so I think I'm doing ok! What do you think?"

Silence hung in the air as Gavroche stared at the headstones and the flowers on the graves. Of course, he knew that neither of them could respond but he always talked like that when he was here. It helped him pretend.

He had never known either his mother or his aunt. Eponine Thenardier had died barely half an hour after he was born, after injuries that she had gotten in a car crash on the way to the hospital. That was really all he knew about what had happened. Whenever he tried to get more information, his dad and his aunts and uncles would just shake their heads at him and said that they'll tell him when he's older. The only one who didn't harp the same lines over and over was Uncle R, but when Gavroche had tried to get him to tell him more about what happened he just got really sad. And then he drank. A lot more than usual. Then he disappeared for two days. In the end Aunt Chetta and Uncle Feuilly had found him at the graveyard and brought him home but Gavroche still remembered the way he was when he came home.

Gavroche never asked him twice.

Aunt Zelma was different. Neither his dad or his aunts and uncles had known her when she was alive. She had died of some kind of disease a few years before he was born. All that they had known of her was what his mum had told them when she was alive. His dad had once said too that mum had wanted to call him Azelma if he had been a girl. He knew that he looked kinda like her too because of his mom's old photos but that was it. But they still brought her flowers every time that he came to visit because she was his aunt and because Uncle R had once said, 'Eponine would rise from the dead and kill us all if we brought her flowers and not Azelma.'

"Well that's mostly everything" he continued. "I also broke Aunt Cosette's favourite statue so I have to fix that before they get back. I bought some superglue at the store just for fixing it! And I lost Jehan's mouse again yesterday. I had opened the cage to feed him and he raced out and now I don't know where he is. He's called Mr. Checkers! Remember when I told you about him when Jehan had found him last week? And I found something weird in Uncle Feuilly and Bahorel's room. It's like some kind of thing you wear? But it has a lot of leather and straps in it? And buckles? I'm thinking of asking them what it is? Cause if it's something that you wear then why don't they wear it? That's just silly otherwise!"

He continued on for another few minutes, telling them about everything that he had found during his hard-worked search of the house. Honestly the things he had found were mind-boggling. And he was going to make a lot of money out of blackmail too if they wanted his silence on his discoveries. Uncle Marius would definitely pay. So would Uncle Bossuet and Joly. He was already getting money from Uncle R for his silence on his 'secret' relationship with Uncle Enjolras. He wondered how much he was going to get out of the rest of them.

Once he ran out of things to say he took a few minutes to tidy up the graves a bit to the best of his ability and saying goodbye to both his mom and aunt with the promise to visit on Christmas day, before grabbing his cart and took off running down the hill. It was much easier this time around and Gavroche let out shrieks of laughter as he gained more and more speed.

And barrelled straight into Inspector Javert as he had just been coming into the cemetery.

Things went flying everywhere, some landing on the path, others on the graves themselves. Scrambling, Gavroche quickly started to load things back into his cart. Most of the things survived the sudden crash however, except for the eggs. He was going to have to go back to the store to get a new carton.

And just where do you think you're going with that you gamin?" Javert growled as he straightened out his clothing and picked up the bouquets of flowers that he had dropped when Gavroche had crashed into him, straightening his back as he did so, desperately trying to act superior.

Oh, a challenge. He loved them.

Puffing his chest out, he straightened his own back up, adding a few inches to his height in doing so.

"Inspector" he drawled in his poshest accent, "I'm on my way to look for a doctor for my wife who is in labour."

And with a couple of quick steps around the man, he was gone and racing down the street, the barrow gaining speed in front of him, forcing the few people who were out walking to jump out of the way to avoid getting impaled, his laughter unknown to him, sending chills down Javert's spine as it did every time he heard it, as he was reminded of a young girl with the exact same laugh. A young girl who had a hard life, had been full of potential and had high hopes for her future. A girl who now lived in that cemetery.

* * *

Gavroche frowned as he stared at the couple across the street. There was a man and a woman, and they were dressed really strange. Not as strange as the way Jehan dressed strange, but a different kind of strange. The woman was wearing some kind of fur coat that looked like the animal had died in a road traffic accident and brightly coloured sunglasses and she had berries in her hair as well. It was like she was playing dress up. Really badly too. He saw her slip and slid on the ice a couple of times too in those ridiculous shoes she was wearing. The man wasn't much better. He looked like his clothes were over a hundred years old. He wasn't wearing a top hat though. Gavroche was slightly disappointed by that.

They had gone into the Mabuef's house as soon as they arrived with a few other guys dressed in dark clothes. They kept coming out at odd intervals with things and loading it into their vans. He wondered if they were robbing the house. But there was a for sale sign in the yard. Maybe they were getting rid of some things. He couldn't call the cops either way, because the phone wasn't working, and he still couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

His frown turned into a scowl as the other guys got into one of the vans and drove off, while the odd couple came out to their van again and closed the doors. The two of them talked for a minute before the man pointed over to his house. Instinctively, he stepped to the side behind the curtain, so it would be harder for them to see him from where they were. The woman seemed to grin and nod before they got into their van and drove off.

He watched them disappear before he turned and went up to his room. He had a feeling that they would be coming back. And he was going to be ready for them.

Later at night, the two Thenardiers pulled up near the house of their next target.

"Big haul here?" Beatrice asked as she got ready to get out of the van.

"Yeah, yeah" her husband replied absentmindedly, more interested in his phone then their next target. "Rich young adults. Laptops, expensive jewellery, flat screen TVs, the whole works."

Beatrice couldn't help the massive smile that broke across her face at the confirmation as she glanced up at the house. What she saw however made her frown in confusion and she gave her husband a whack on the arm.

"I thought you said that all of them had left for New York yesterday?"

"They did!"

"Then who's in there?" she cried pointing towards the house.

Thenardier looked up, frowning, before his jaw dropped open.

All the lights in the windows were on. He could hear music and voices coming from the house even from the van. And he could see people moving around through the blinds in there.

"What the hell?" he muttered, leaning forward to get a closer look. "Could have sworn that it was yesterday that they were leaving."

"Well clearly not" Beatrice scoffed, leaning back against her seat. "All that time wasted and they're still at home. Unbelievable."

"Must be tomorrow they're going" Thenardier muttered, mostly to himself, unable to believe his eyes. He could have sworn that they had left yesterday. All his sources had said yesterday. How did they get it wrong?

"Really?" Beatrice's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Did your sources tell you that too?"

"Quiet you" Thenardier growled, glaring daggers at his wife. Clearly, she still had some common sense in her as she kept her trap shut. Now that silence ran in the van, Thenardier was able to get his thoughts in order and formulate a plan of action.

"Ok, here's what we'll do" he started. "We'll leave it for tonight. Clearly our information was screwed up. We come back early in the morning tomorrow and stake the house out. Wait to see them leave. Then when we see them leave we can do it tomorrow night instead." Thenardier felt himself relax a bit as he thought about it a bit more. Yeah, waiting made sense. They had been hitting houses every day for nearly a week now. Someone was bound to get suspicious. Skipping tonight would throw the cops off their scent. Maybe convince them that they're targeting a different area now. Then while they focus in on that, they can attack tomorrow instead. They had to be more careful with this house. He knew that it was going to be a big haul so him and Beatrice would be doing it by themselves, so they wouldn't have to split the profits with anyone else. But that also meant that they had nobody to throw under the bus if the cops got wind of what was going on.

"Yeah, ok" he heard Beatrice agree, but he didn't really give a crap about her opinion. They would go along with his plan whether she liked it or not. Looking around for any witnesses, he started the van up and moved off. They would come back in the morning.

Neither of them noticed the boy watching them from the window of their target.

* * *

Thenardier woke up with a start. There was a large banging sound coming from outside. Grumbling he tried to get back to sleep but the ache in his back and Beatrice hogging the blankets again was making the whole exercise futile. Finally, he opened his eyes with the intention of claiming the blankets back and kicking Beatrice out to go put on the kettle when he saw that he wasn't in his bed at home. He was in his van outside the house that had been their target last night. And his neck was killing him.

Groaning, he attempted to stretch as much as he could inside the van. What was he doing here again? Oh yeah, stakeout. They had gotten here at five in the morning determined to see them leave. They must have fallen asleep for - Thenardier looked at the clock on the dashboard and cursed. Four hours?! Fuck! What if they missed them? All that effort for nothing!

The strange banging sound outside was continuing, only it was now accompanied by a sawing sound as well. What the hell was that?

Turning towards his window to investigate the sound he saw a kid. A kid was sawing a part of a tree off. It was the kid the kid that did all that last night. The adults had left, their information was correct, the kid had been left at home. Oh, that was priceless.

"Beatrice" he said, nudging his wife awake. "Beatrice wake up, you have to see this."

He heard her force herself awake, but he didn't bother turning to look, he was too preoccupied with watching the child in front of him. He looked pretty young, ten at the most, seven, eight maybe at the least and was bundled up against the cold but he was clearly well looked after, and his clothes were of a top quality. Clearly, he had never known a hard life.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Beatrice moving forward, getting a clear picture of what had happened last night and heard her scoff in indigitation. "You got to be kidding me!" she whispered. "A kid? We were tricked by a kid?"

"Looks like it" he replied, watching the child drag his tree back inside. "Oh, this is too good."

He turned and glanced at his wife once and then the two of them burst into laughter.

Once they had calmed down, they both made their way over to the window where they could see the kid hanging up decorations on the tree he had cut down. He was all alone. Oh, this really was two good. He wasn't sure whether to be impressed or angry that he had been outsmarted by a kid.

Going up closer against the glass, he couldn't help the grin that broke out across his face as he called out.

"Hey there buddy."

Startled the kid inside dropped the bauble he was holding and it fell to the ground.

"We know you're all alone in there, buddy. Mommy and Daddy and everyone else in that house with you are all gone away. It's just you alone against the big bad wolves."

The kid was still frozen in place as he listened and Thenardier briefly wondered what was going through his head. Oh, he was beyond pissed that he had been taken for a fool last night, but no matter it was just a kid. Nothing was going to stop him now from taking what he was owed.

"So, here's what's going to happen" he continued, pressing himself up close against the window. "We're going to come back here at nine o'clock tonight. That's when the big hand on the clock is pointing up at the very top and the tiny little hand is pointing at the number nine. And when we do you're not going to interfere do you hear? You stay out of our way and let us take what's owed to us then we might consider letting you keep your Christmas presents." At that last remark, Beatrice broke into sniggers and he had to bite his lip hard to prevent himself from doing the same.

"Remember little buddy, nine o'clock tonight. On the dot." With that Thenardier turned back to the van, Beatrice right on his heels, the kid still standing there frozen besides his tree.

* * *

Courfeyrac was almost ready to rip his hair out in frustration. He had managed by pure luck to catch a flight to London's Heathrow airport the day he found out about Gav being left at home, but so far, he hadn't been able to catch a flight back to Paris at all. Any one that did have seats available were all flying after Christmas day. Frustrated he had tried to see if he could catch a flight to any other French airports or even a German or Spanish one, but he had experienced the same situation.

There had been a seat available on a plane heading to Switzerland, but he had gotten distracted preventing a man from getting robbed and by the time he had gotten to the desk the seat had been taken.

Now he was hurrying towards the rental cars hoping that he could rent one to drive back to Paris. If he couldn't well . . . he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

He had his eyes on his phone as he typed out a message to his dad. Both him and mum had decided to spend the holidays in Brazil where it would be warmer and Courfeyrac didn't want to ruin their holiday, so he had just told them a watered-down version of what had happened and stressed the fact that he had everything under control and to stay where they were. What could they do anyway? Chances are they'd be stuck in the same situation as he was right now. He saw the news of the strike going on in the airports in Brazil. They'd just be stuck there at the airport, unable to get back to Paris when they could be enjoying their Christmas like planned on the beach.

He had just sent the message off informing his dad of his attempts to get a rented car and drive back of his failed attempts to catch a flight so far, but he had another plan when he bumped into someone. Swearing under his breath, he looked up a half-hearted apology on his tongue when he saw that it was the man he had saved from being robbed earlier on.

"Oh, it's you!" Courfeyrac said in surprise.

"Yes" the man said slowly before recognition dawned in his eyes. "Oh, you're the boy who stopped that bastard from robbing me. I believe I owe you a thank you" he drawled before taking Courfeyrac's hand and shaking it. "You may have saved my job."

"It was nothing" Courfeyrac tried to brush off, though internally he was bristling with annoyance that doing that one good deed had stopped him from getting a flight where he could have been closer to Gavroche.

"It was something" the man disagreed. "The name's Felix Tholomyes."

"Courfeyrac" he mumbled in reply.

"Well then Courfeyrac, where are you heading to for the holidays?"

Courfeyrac sighed, "I'm trying to get back to Paris. It's kind of an emergency and I need to get home as quickly as possible. So, I'm trying to see if I can rent a car and drive back there."

Felix chuckled happily, "well I'm sorry to be the one to inform you but they're all out of rental cars. I just overheard an announcement about it a few minutes ago."

"What?" Courfeyrac asked his heart dropping into his stomach. This can't be true, if it was then he really was going to rip his hair out in frustration!

"Yes, it is" Felix confirmed. "But I'm driving back to Paris, I can give you a lift."

"You can?" Courfeyrac asked, hardly willing to believe the direction that the conversation had suddenly turned to.

"You just saved my job and possibly saved my firm a major client. It's the least I could do" Felix replied. "Come on, I imagine that you want to get to Paris as quickly as possible."

Quickly, Courfeyrac fell into step beside Felix, answering his questions with his own charm that Felix was an equal match to, hope blooming in his chest as he thought of one thing.

_'I'm coming Gav. I'm almost there.'_

* * *

Gavroche stared at the nativity scene set out in front of the church and wondered briefly if it could grant wishes. There used to be a statue of some holy person out in front of the church as well, but earlier that year Uncle Bossuet had skidded trying to avoid a cat on the road and had crashed right into the statue and broke it into pieces. But the Bishop Myriel had been really cool about it and didn't even ban them like the priest in that other stuffier church closer to the city centre had when some windows in his church had gotten broken during a protest. It wasn't like they had done it on purpose! Honestly some people just didn't understand that some sacrifices had to be made for a better France.

Curiously he looked at the empty manger where the baby Jesus would be placed tomorrow, before redirecting his gaze to the angel on top of the stable.

"I don't know if you're able to grant wishes" he began, "but if you can't maybe you can take it to your superior; but can you let them know that I don't want any toys for Christmas. Nothing at all. And instead I just want my family back in time for Christmas tomorrow. That's my dad Courfeyrac, as well as Enjolras, Combeferre, Grantaire, Marius, Cosette, Joly, Feuilly, Bossuet, Musichetta, Bahorel and Jehan. Cause I miss them, and I really want them back. Even if they don't miss me. And if you have time my grandparents too, but that's cool if you can't, I'm only including them to be polite."

He looked at the rest of the figures in the stable before walking towards the door of the church. Uncle Marius had told him the last time he had brought him here that churches were a great place to think. "When I found out the truth about my father and grandfather" he had started back then with Gavroche just listening silently. He had heard the story before although he felt that everyone was telling him a boring version of what had happened, "the first place I went to cool down was to the church. Churches are silent places that don't have distractions. If you ever need to plan something, a church is the best place to go."

_'The church wasn't silent now'_ Gavroche thought as he walked in. It was filled with the sound of Christmas songs. Twisting his head to the side he saw the carol singers up on the balcony wearing those weird white coloured robes as he walked further in. He was turning his head back around when he bumped into someone.

"Hey careful!"

"You be careful!" Gavroche retorted back as he turned his head to the other side to glare at the man. He was around his dad's age (so, ancient) and was really pale. He was wearing an incredibly fancy black suit that Gavroche had seen those really rich people who owned big businesses wear on their way to balls and for some reason he had a red rose in his lapel too. But most of Gavroche's attention had been drawn to his hair. It was black and curly. But the curls didn't look natural like his dad's or Uncle's Enjolras's did though. It looked like he had spent hours styling them with a ton of fancy-smancy products and a hair curler like Aunt Cosette did when she was going somewhere important.

_'Don't say it',_ the voice in his head that sounded like Uncle Combeferre said disapprovingly.

_'Don't do it',_ the voice that sounded like Aunt Cosette said warningly.

_'Be polite',_ the voice that sounded like Uncle Joly said cautiously.

_'Wipe that smirk off his face!'_ the voice that sounded like Bahorel cheered.

Bahorel was always his favourite.

"Do you always dress like a pompous pansy or were you robbed and had to wear your Halloween costume?"

The man's eyes widened in shock before he attempted to recover his composure.

"Do you always dress like a blind squirrel put together your outfit?" the man snarked back, putting on a pair of black gloves. Seriously who did this guy think he was? A posh Victorian lord?

"I'm not the one wearing a rose in my jacket" Gavroche answered easily, "where's your top hat, Lord Montgomery?"

The man in question blinked in surprise before he smiled and did a little bow to Gavroche and pretended to tip an imaginary hat to him. "Currently being brushed by my butler" he replied easily, "now out of my way you little gremlin."

Gavroche grumbled a bit as the man shoved past him and out of the corner of his eye he saw him.

Inspector Javert.

The man was sitting in the middle of a pew, a few rows back from where Gavroche was standing and he wasn't even praying or anything. Instead he was just staring up at the altar with a strange look on his face. Gavroche hesitated for a moment before deciding to bite the bullet and made his way over to him.

He slid into the pew easily and sat down besides the Inspector. The man didn't seem to notice him at all, lost in his own little world. Gavroche briefly thought about grabbing his handcuffs and running for it, but he really didn't want to be arrested so instead he alerted him to his presence with words. "I always thought that you prayed to the law."

Javert jerked in surprise halfway out of his seat as he glanced down at Gavroche and recognition shone in his eyes. "You" he breathed heavily.

"Me" Gavroche sang the answer a little in response. Javert glared at him before he settled down in his seat again.

"What are you doing here?" he growled, "I thought you lot were banned from here."

"No, that's a different church!" he answered smugly. Javert gave a little snort in reply before turning his gaze back towards the altar.

"Are you here by yourself?"

The question took Gavroche by surprise and he paused for a second that he prayed wouldn't be suspicious. "No, my Uncle Bossuet's outside. He doesn't want to come in in case the priests throw him out over what he did to the statue."

Javert grumbled a bit to that, and he thought he heard a lot of swear words in there too. Dirty ones. Well, if they were good enough for the Inspector, he grinned to himself in his mind.

"What about you?" he asked before the Inspector could continue questioning him, "don't you have family with you?"

Javert got really quiet again, turning his gaze back towards the front of the church but Gavroche still thought he saw tears in his eyes.

"No" he answered finally, his voice rough. "At least not any worth associating with. I used to have my nieces but they're . . . they're dead."

"I'm sorry" Gavroche frowned. "How did they die?"

"One was sick" Javert answered quietly not taking his eyes off the front of the church, "and the other died in a car crash."

"That's what happened to my mom and aunt" Gavroche offered up. "My aunt died of some sickness a couple years before I was born, and my mom had gotten into a car crash when she was going into hospital to give birth to me and those injuries killed her. They're buried besides each other in that graveyard where you bumped into me yesterday."

Javert jerked his head back quickly to stare at him. There was a strange look in his eye that he couldn't understand. "I'm very sorry about your mother and aunt" he said after a while.

"And I'm sorry about your nieces" Gavroche replied easily.

The two then sat in silence for another few minutes. Gavroche stared in awe at the decorations inside the church. The whole thing was actually really pretty, maybe he should go more often when Aunt Cosette and Uncle Marius went to church. He remembered after the Bishop had promised Uncle Bossuet that the church wasn't going to sue him for the damage done to the statue, Aunt Cosette had made them all go to church to thank the Bishop. Uncle Grantaire had fallen asleep in the middle of the sermon and neither Aunt Cosette or Uncle Enjolras would speak to him for the rest of day.

"I'm sorry you know."

Gavroche was pretty sure that he had gotten whiplash, he had turned his head to look at the Inspector so quickly.

"I don't always mean to ruin your fun" he continued quietly.

"You don't like my dad much do you?" he questioned just as quietly.

Javert paused for a moment, clearly thinking about what to say to that, before muttering a small quiet "no".

Yeah that's what he always liked about the Inspector. He's a killjoy, a willing minion to a broken system and at this point his dad's and uncle Enjolras's mortal enemy, but he always tells the truth.

Well what he believes the truth is anyway. He's a bit of a mindless slave to bourgeoise class system and an unjust law system and that has its own view of the truth. But he always tells the truth as he thinks it is. And Gavroche could respect that. Most of the time.

"And I would say that I'm sorry for always pulling those pranks on you, but my dad told me not to lie" Gavroche said easily and watched in amazement as the corners of Javert's mouth pulled up in a smile. It was gone as quickly as it came but Gavroche still stared at his mouth in shock.

"I made you smile!" he breathed in astonishment.

"That was a muscle twitch" Javert replied gruffly.

"Yeah a muscle twitch called a smile!" Gavroche shot back unable to believe what just happened. Javert could smile, who knew?

Suddenly the church bells outside started ringing. Six o'clock. He had three hours before the burglars arrived. Although he didn't have the quiet planning time that he wanted, but he didn't need it. He just made the impossible happen. He could do anything.

"I have to go" he said quickly, standing up. "Uncle Bossuet will be wondering what happened to me."

Javert said nothing, just watching him with a strange look in his eyes as started to walk away. Just as he turned to walked down the aisle he spoke up again.

"Boy? Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas to you too Inspector" he returned cheerfully before heading down the aisle and out of the church. Once he was outside his happy demeanour left him and was replaced by grim realisation as it dawned on him what was going to happen in a few hours. He quickly broke out into a run as he raced towards home.

* * *

As he arrived back home he quickly let himself in before he locked the door and leant his back against it. Gavroche then turned his gaze at the empty rooms. Where in his mind he could see the rest of family there. In the living room where they would all gather for movie nights, arguing over what to watch, until Combeferre had set up a rota. Which had quickly gotten scrapped when they figured out that Dad had altered it, so his turn would come up whenever something he wanted was on, irrespective of whose turn it actually was. The small setee in the room where Joly, Musichetta and Bossuet would curl up together like a pack of puppies or whatever kind of animals would flop all over each other. The x-box where Grantaire, Bahorel and Jehan would spend hours playing games. The beanbags where Marius and Cosette would cuddle up and whisper to each other with gross soppy looks on their faces.

His gaze turned to the dining room where they would all gather for their meetings where Enjolras would talk about their goals for the group and any protest that they could attend to further awareness of their cause. He remembered one time before Enjolras had come in to start the meeting, he had dressed up in his clothes, walked into the dining room where everyone had been waiting, stood up on their leader's designated chair and immediately began talking about building a barricade using furniture in the middle of the street in front of the Musain where they all normally gathered after work to fight for their cause - well school for him, because according to Dad and the rest of them going out to earn his keep like all of them or running around the streets of Paris having fun was child abuse, yet somehow sitting in a cramped desk in an itchy uniform eight hours a day, five day a week, while a boring-ass teacher rambled their head off about things that would be of no use to him in the future wasn't. He smelled bullshit. Yeah, for some reason Enjolras had not been happy with his plan. He didn't get why. It sounded like it would work. Grantaire, Jehan and Bahorel certainly agreed with him.

His eyes drifted over the rest of the rooms, filled with all different kinds of plants that Jehan had insisted were absolutely needed in that particular spot, not giving a toss about everyone else's objections, where every nook and cranny held some memory with his family. They weren't here right now. Their home was in his hands. He had to fight for it.

"This is my house. I have to defend it."

Those morons might think that they were king and queen of the world, but he was the king of this castle.

It was time to prepare for battle.

* * *

The next three hours were a non-stop blur of activity as he quickly devised a plan of action and set about making the house as burglar-proof as possible. He couldn't afford to half-ass it. He only had one chance to defend his home. He didn't want to think about what would happen if he failed. He really didn't think that the burglars would leave him unharmed either. Something about them just screamed 'danger!' Too bad for them though that he was much more dangerous. Uncle Grantaire always said that he was his mother's son and according to everyone else his mom was always a schemer; always with a plan up her sleeve, ready to do whatever it took to protect something she cared about. Now he was going to do whatever it took to defend his home. He was going to make her proud.

At long last everything was ready. The traps had been set. The escape route had been prepared. All variables had been accounted for. There was nothing left to do now but wait.

And have dinner, because after all, you can't strike the fear of God into two old coots on an empty stomach.

He had heated up one of the microwave dinners that he had bought the other day and had only taken a couple of mouthfuls when he heard the ancient grandfather clock out in the landing, that was basically a bigger version of the tiny one on the mantlepiece start to chime.

It was nine o'clock.

He could see headlights pull up on the street outside the house.

They were here.

Quickly he swallowed the mouthful of food that was already in his mouth and ran to grab Uncle Bossuet's BB gun that Aunt Chetta had hidden beside her shotgun that she kept under hers, Uncles Joly and Bossuet's beds for emergencies from where he left it on the sofa. He had already checked that it was loaded, and he ran back to the back door. Most thieves usually enter the house by the back door so to prevent them from being seen. Besides there was no way that they were going to be getting in through the front door anytime soon. Plus, he wanted them to know as soon as possible that he meant business. After all he was the top dog around here. The sooner they learnt that the better chance they had of escaping his house of horrors.

Leaning against the door he clocked the gun once.

"It's show time."

* * *

Thenardier rubbed his hands gleefully together in his mind as he pulled up in front of the house. Now he may have gotten fooled the last night, but nothing was going to keep him from success this time around. The kid was all alone and had nobody to protect him. The job would be easy pickings once they got in. The brat would probably be so terrified that he would run off and hide under his bed probably crying for his mummy and daddy to come save him. Well they probably didn't care about him too much if they were gone and he was still here. Not that he blamed them. Children were just worthless. Well Eponine had had her uses from time to time especially with the important jobs, but Azelma had been nothing but a waste of space and money. It was a good thing that she died when she did and saved him the effort of getting rid of her. Although he still had to fork out money for her funeral. Bloody girl, even dead she had been costing him money!

He had hopes for Eponine though. Even after all that mess with social services after Azelma died - it wasn't their fault that she couldn't get better it was just natural selection doing its job. If her own immune system couldn't cure her then why should he waste his money on those useless quacks of doctors and those expensive medicines? Nature just ran its course. But apparently the police didn't see it like that. Especially that pathetic Inspector Javert. Honestly the name that his little brother was calling himself these days. It was rather embarrassing. Although he got the last laugh when the man was unable to prove he was a neglectful parent in anyway though. Yeah it meant that he was stuck with Eponine again, but she was old enough to earn her keep.

Yet in the end the girl turned out to be a pathetic, ungrateful, lazy little vermin. Because not long after Azelma's death the brat took off. After everything that they had done for her. After all that money that they had to spend on food and clothes and other stupid expenses like school books. As soon as she realised that she wouldn't be getting another penny from them, she decided to abandon them. Even ten years on he was still smarting over her ungratefulness. The bitch was pure lucky that he hadn't found her yet. Because when he did . . . well she'd be joining her sister for certain.

But now was not the time for dwelling on the past. Now was the time to focus on the present. Especially his Christmas present, breaking into that house and getting all the valuables he knew was inside there. The targets were adults from rich backgrounds who worked rich jobs, the place was going to be a gold mine in loot.

"You ready love?" he asked as he slipped on the gloves he always wore when completing jobs.

"Whenever you are darling" she replied, with the very same smile that made him fall in love with her all those years ago, on her face as she handed him a crowbar. Grinning, he took the crowbar from her as he leant over to give her a quick peck which she gladly returned.

Moving quietly but surely, they left the van and headed around towards the back of the house slowly, taking care to act as normal as possible, in case anyone was watching. They paused at the door, neither one quite knowing how to proceed.

"How do you want to do this?" Beatrice whispered, taking care in case that the brat was listening in on the other side of the door.

Carefully Thenardier weighed his options, they had never broken into a home with someone still inside it. But was just a dim-witted kid, nothing to be worried about.

"Could always just knock?" he suggested, "I mean he's just a kid. Kids are pretty stupid."

That grew a chuckle out of his wife as she jokingly rapped on the door. Thenardier then felt the need to make a game out of the whole thing.

"Open up kid, it's Santa Claus" he joked, sharing an amused look with Beatrice who hid her laugh with a cough, before she joined in on the fun.

"And Mrs Claus" she managed to get out, before struggling to control her laughter.

Thenardier was just going to add a quip about cookies and milk when suddenly there was a strange banging sound and Beatrice started to shriek with pain and started jumping around on one leg, holding the other up to her chest and cursing to hell and back.

"The hell's the matter with you?!" he cried, worried that she was going to bring suspicion down on them, but she didn't bother to answer him, now just rolling around on the ground cursing and making motions towards the pet flap at the bottom of the door.

Grumbling Thenardier stuck his head through the flap, obviously meant for some type of animal, clearly a memento from the last owner as after watching the house for a couple of days, they knew that none of the occupants owned any animals. Silently in his head he promised that Beatrice would pay for acting so ridiculous over nothing when he proved that-

There was a gun being pointed at his head.

That little brat was lying on his stomach right in front of him, pointing a gun right at his face.

"Hi" was all the little brat said before he pulled the trigger and the middle of his head erupted in a blinding pain as the bullet hit smack dab in the centre. Swearing furiously, he yanked his head back out to avoid getting hit a second time, holding his head in pain as he furiously resisted the urge to smash the brat's head in.

And for some strange reason all he could think about was about that brat had the exact same smirk Eponine had when she was being smug about something. Come to think about it, that brat resembled Eponine a lot. Same face structure, same cheeky attitude, same nose. Shaking his head in frustration he grabbed his crowbar with increased determination.

No matter, he'd just take his frustrations on Eponine out on that monster. As if he needed more of a reason to break that kids bones after he shot him.

* * *

Courfeyrac tiredly ran a hand through his hair as he stared out the window. Not that there was much to see. Just the tunnel walls and other cars, trucks and vehicles travelling alongside them. He had offered to drive but had been turned down. Part of him had been grateful as he was exhausted and worried that he might fall asleep at the wheel, but hours later and he still couldn't sleep at all. He knew that he had to but all he could think about was Gavroche and then sleep was impossible.

He had tried to phone the house earlier again but still couldn't get through. Briefly he wondered if Gavroche knew that the phones were disconnected. He really did regret not getting the boy a phone, even a nokia brick one with buttons for emergencies. If he had had that, then he at least could have phoned Gavroche when he first found out to check on him and he could have been able to keep checking that he was alright. Now all he had to go on was pure hope.

He had managed to contact Enjolras and his parents though and dropped them all a message that he had just left Britain and was now on his way to France and would be home in a few hours. He didn't message the others. He just couldn't face them. Logically he knew that they would never have left Gavroche deliberately and that it was a terrible mistake on their part, but he was still too angry at them to be rational. Once he got home and saw whether or not Gavroche was fine, he'd be able to decide whether to let go of his anger.

Finally, Felix signed and decided for the first time in an hour to start up a conversation. "So, why the absolute panic to get back to Paris?"

Courfeyrac sighed, weighing up his options before deciding to just be honest. Why the hell not? If he kept the details vague, then the man might not know who to report to the police, but even then, he didn't think that Felix was the type of man to really care about other people to that point.

"Well the thing is," he began hesitantly, "I work in this law firm and I've got a child too. A little boy. He's eight years old and he's everything to me. I love him more than life itself. Only a few weeks ago, I was called in to go to New York to work on this case. It was a really important one too - both to my career and the firm. Only I had to leave my little boy at home, he still had school you see and there was nothing for him to do in New York. So, I left him with my friends. We had plans to spend Christmas in New York anyway and they'd bring him over with them then. So yeah, I agreed, didn't see anything wrong with that and I went over. Then the day they came over too I went to the hotel that we were all staying in and found them in a panic. Turns out, they had overslept that day and were in a total panic trying to get to the airport on time. And they were in such a rush that they forgot him. They were in such a panic to catch their flight that they forgot about my eight-year-old child. And to top it all off they still remembered to disconnect the phone lines before they left, and he doesn't have a phone or any social media of his because I always said no, he's a kid what's he going to do with them? Only now I'm kicking myself because at least if he had one of them then I could have gotten a hold of him that way, but I can't and now I'm stuck to waiting until I'm back home to see if he's ok. And I couldn't get a flight back to Paris until Christmas Eve back in New York so I managed to catch a flight back to London instead, only I couldn't get a connecting flight to any airport in France so I was going to rent a car but you told me that they were all rented already and then you offered to give me a lift and. Yeah" he blurted out in one long spiral.

Felix was silent for a long moment. "Well that's not the story I was expecting" he said finally.

"Oh yeah, what were you expecting?" Courfeyrac couldn't help but smirk.

"I don't know, a 'I missed my flight' or something generic along those lines" he laughed. Courfeyrac tried to be calm but he couldn't help himself and soon he was laughing himself. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to laugh.

"Pretty sure I have the most interesting story there is out of all those people at that airport" Courfeyrac sighed.

"Probably" Felix smiled which Courfeyrac had gladly returned.

"What about you?" he asked, "miss your flight?"

"No" he laughed, "I was called back to the office. I'm a lawyer too. Senior partner. Don't mind it really. I love my work. So, I'm planning to get to the office and put a few hours in to solve the problems that have sprung up then I'll relax at home. Pretty normal for me."

"Yeah there's nothing normal about my situation" Courfeyrac couldn't help but laugh as he admitted that, yes, he was stressed out of his mind, had barely slept in the last couple of days, barely ate and was mainly surviving on coffee. He dreaded to think about what his hair looked like without his usual products and time taken to care for it and his clothes looked awful. But yeah, there was nothing normal about his situation.

"Oh God," he groaned suddenly, smacking the back of his head off the headrest, "I'll kill the lot of them if anything's happened to him. I mean most people forget a charger or a pair of shoes or something like that, but no, they manage to forget a child. A child!"

"This is why I'm so glad I don't have kids" Felix laughed, "nothing but problems. Trust me boy leave it at that one. Kids are nothing but a burden."

"You don't have kids?" Courfeyrac asked surprised, he gathered that the man was a workaholic, but Felix was as old as his parents, if not a few years older. He figured that any kids he had were grown and raised or at least near around that age. Felix seemed a lot like him personality wise and all he could think about was that if he was in his position then he'd want a big family of his own.

"Well I have them" Felix admitted, "but I've never met any of them. Kids were never part of my plan. Didn't want them, don't want anything to do with the ones that I do have. Life's easier that way then having to deal with those brats and their mothers. Just looking money, they are."

Courfeyrac couldn't help but frown at that. What Felix was saying just went against everything that Courfeyrac held dear to him. "But you do have kids?"

"Around four that I know do exist" he admitted easily, his attention focused on the traffic in front of them, "possibly more. I was a bit of a player when I was younger. Still am, though contraception is much easier to get a hold of these days then it was in the past."

"Do they know about you? Your kids?" Courfeyrac knew that he shouldn't be asking that and prying into the man's life like that, especially as he already disagreed with his views on family and he needed him to get back to Gav. But he was just too curious. It was a trait that unfortunately, Gavroche had inherited from him.

"No idea" he admitted. "Like I said, I know that I have children, but I really don't know anything about them. Three that I do know of, are all the same age or thereabouts and two of them are twins. The fourth is a couple of years younger than them. Mid-teens I think? That's all that I really know about them. Maybe their mothers told them about me I don't know, but nobody's come looking for me yet, which frankly, is what I want. They wouldn't get anything out of me anyway."

"What if they didn't want anything?" Courfeyrac frowned. "What if they just wanted to get to know their father?"

"Oh, come on boy, nobody tracks down a man they haven't known their whole lives just to talk!" he laughed. "Waste of time anyway. Like I said, I wouldn't want them interfering in my life."

_'God this man was a complete jerk'_ Courfeyrac thought. For how similar the two of them appeared on the surface, they were completely different people underneath. Vaguely he wondered if his biological father was anything like him. If he was then he was glad that he hadn't bothered to try and find out who he is or track the man down. People like him made Courfeyrac sick.

"You should have just left the kid with his mother" Felix continued, unaware that he was wandering into a very dangerous area of conversation. "Woman probably ran off and dumped the kid on you when she realised that she wasn't going to get a penny. Gold-diggers the lot of them."

"Eponine wasn't like that!" Courfeyrac snapped, clenching and unclenching his hands and taking deep breaths in a desperate attempt to calm down before he slaughtered the man. _'Think of Gav, Gav needs you right now. Put up with the bastard for Gav's sake'_ Courfeyrac thought furiously.

"We were going to do everything together, co-parent and give him the best possible life?"

"Using past tense, huh?" Felix countered, using his experience as a lawyer to find a possible weak spot and attack.

"What happened huh? Did she get cold feet? Decided that wiping up after some brat wasn't worth it and decided to go off where the offers would be better?"

"She's dead" Courfeyrac said in a tone laced with a threat. "She died not long after our boy was born. Car crash."

Felix was silent for a long moment, clearly not expecting that before letting out a breath.

"Christ, I - I'm sorry. I didn't realise."

Courfeyrac didn't bother to reply after that, too worried that he'd respond with violence and eventually it just trailed off into an awkward silence, with Courfeyrac silently fuming. Taking deep breaths, he forced himself to think of happy memories in order to calm down. It was a technique he used in the courtroom when his opponent had been making really infuriating points. It wasn't as effective this time around.

"And you're wrong" Courfeyrac continued, once he felt the urge to kill the man calm down. Felix looked at him curiously. "About kids being a waste of time. My little boy, he's everything to me. Yeah, I had him young, and I was a single parent. I mean I had my friends and my parents to help out, but it was still incredibly difficult. Especially because I was still in school. But I wouldn't change my mind about keeping him for the world. He's everything to me. If I lost him, then my life would be destroyed. He's my whole world. Seriously, having him was the best decision I ever made in my whole life. You might have felt that way too if you had bothered to get to know any of your kids."

Felix looked at him sceptically but didn't press the issue and Courfeyrac was slightly glad for that. He said his piece and he had a feeling that if pressed the issue about Felix's lack of father skills then they'd just get into a major fight and Courfeyrac really needed the man to drive him back home so he can see that Gav was alright. In the end he leant his head against the headrest and closed his eyes, hoping against hope that sleep would finally take him for the next couple of hours.

* * *

Thenardier was furious. Absolutely furious. How dare he? How dare that little brat shoot him! His head was killing him now and all he could think about was how he was going to slaughter that child. No Mr Nice Guy from him now. He was going to make that child suffer. With those thoughts in mind, he stepped up onto the first step only to go flying down hard onto the concrete pavement. Now the back of his head and his back were killing him. After a long moment he finally made a sound. "Ow."

Beatrice grumbled as she walked to the basement steps while Thenardier went around to the front. Her leg was throbbing with the pain and she couldn't feel her toes from the cold. She couldn't wait to finish the job and go home. She knew that they should have brought the rest of the gang with them for this but Thenardier had brushed off the suggestion. "It's just a kid" he said. "Nothing we can't handle by ourselves. Besides if we brought them then we'd have to split the spoils with them." Oh, she was going to kill him for that. If they had had more people with them then the job would have been easy pickings. She stubbornly put one foot down on the basement steps, intending to get in as quickly as possible - Only to immediately lose her footing and slip. She quickly scrambled for any kind of purchase on the steps only to find nothing but a slippery surface. 'Ice' she realised in horror as quickly slid down the steps on her bottom to the door. Well, at least she was down at the door. Acting quickly, she scrambled to get up, only to continuously slip on the icy ground. Finally, she wedged her crowbar into the ledge where the glass pane met wood and used that to help herself stand. She felt like gloating. She didn't feel that way for long though when she lost her grip on the crowbar and she fell meeting the ground again hard. The crowbar smacked against her head a moment later.

Stubbornly Thenardier gripped the bannister to the steps and was pleased to find that the brat hadn't thought to put something on this as well. Guess he wasn't as clever as he liked to think himself as. Using that, he managed to drag himself up the stairs with minimal sliding of his legs. Once he reached the top, he gave a triumphant laugh and let go of the banister. Only to fall down the second he took his next step forward. Oh, he hated that brat.

On the other side of the house, Beatrice managed to get into the basement by using her crowbar to pry open the door, not bothering to get off the ground and risk falling again. Once she did that, she dragged herself into the dry and warm house where she managed to stand up fully without slipping on the ice. Now she was slowly walking towards the stairs that led to the rest of the house, carefully eyeing the surroundings for any possible valuables. Vaguely, she flicked on the light switch - a thin metal chain dangling from the bulb itself. The chain along with the light bulb came off. Confused she looked up just as she heard a strange sound that was coming closer. She noticed the boxes just as they hit her square on the head and she crashed to the ground in pain.

At that same moment, Thenardier who had finally gotten to the front door without sliding, reached out and put his hand on the metal doorknob that had been glowing red in colour. Thenardier hadn't realised something was wrong until his hand was stuck to the doorknob burning like he was down in hell. For a moment all Thenardier could do was stand stock still in pain before the most unmanly shriek that he ever made left his mouth as he peeled his hand off the burning hot doorknob and frantically blew on his steaming hand. Steaming! It was steaming! He was too busy with dealing with the blinding pain in his hand that he didn't even care when he lost his footing and fell onto his back, but not down the stairs. Frantically he turned around and dragged himself down the steps before plunging his hand into the snow. He was never more grateful for snow.

Beatrice didn't know what the kid had put on the stairs - some kind of paint? tar was it? but it had stuck to her shoes and she was unable to move them off the step, so she was forced to take them off. Her socks had experienced the same problem, so they had been sacrificed too. She knew that she could get a pair of socks from any of those people who lived here, but she really hoped that the girls who lived here were her shoe size. She'd wear them anyway regardless at this point, but it would be nice if they fit. Beatrice's thoughts had been so focused on the thoughts of a good pair of shoes that she didn't notice the nail on the next step that she put her foot right in the middle of. She noticed it a moment later when the pain shot through her foot and she lost her balance falling to the floor.

Cautiously, Thenardier slowly opened the back door, and carefully peaked his head in looking around carefully for any sign of the brat and his gun. Only to hear a gushing sound and the scent of burning hair and intense pain on his head as he registered that the smell and the pain was because his head was on fire. Screaming and roaring he turned back around and ran right for a snowdrift, sticking his head right in and whimpering with relief as the throbbing pain in his head was replaced by the cold numbing sensation of the snow. Slowly he raised his head up from the half-melted drift and turned his head back towards the house. "Your dead kid" he growled.

Furiously, Beatrice turned to go back outside. She wasn't going to try those stairs again. Who knew what else the kid had booby trapped it with? No, she'd try a window, it'd be much safer. She slammed the door behind her and stepped towards the stairs - and then slipped and fell to the ground. Oh. Right. The ice.

With a roar of fury, Thenardier quickly slammed the back door open, undoing the trap set for those who would enter that way. He looked around for any sign of that brat, oh he was going to make him suffer. "Where are you, you little brat?!" he roared. "I'm in here, you big buffoon, come and get me!" he heard the kid's taunting little voice say from the next room. In a pure blind rage Thenardier barged through the door into what looked like a dining room before his face was covered in some sticky material like cling film. With a growl that sounded better fit for an animal than a human he ripped the cling film away and turned his sights towards the boy who was grinning behind a fan. "You know, I really like your chicken costume" was the brat said before Thenardier started to make towards him. The next thing he knew though his vision was blocked by a swirl of feathers and the last thing he saw was the kid running further into the house.

After the hell that was the basement stairs and the basement itself, opening the window was miraculously easy. Carefully scanning around for any traps Beatrice gave a triumphant laugh when she couldn't see any dangers and swung her feet over the windowsill and jumped to the ground. It was only when the searing pain of glass and porcelain attacked the soles of her feet that she remembered that she had forgotten to look down. Using every curse word she could think of, she slid to the ground, desperately trying to brush the broken shards out of her feet. "I'm going to kill that kid!" she shrieked as she pulled herself to her feet and carefully made her way through the broken decorations, screaming in pain as she broke a few and her feet experienced even more pain.

Furiously Thenardier muttered curses under his breath as he made his way towards the door that the kid had left through. He caught sight of himself in the mirror hanging on the wall and he knew he looked ridiculous. The feathers had stuck to his face, his clothes, what was left of his hair and in short, he looked a sight. Oh, and the damage done to his fine hair because of that fire! Mark his words Thenardier was going to make that little brat pay. Slamming the door open he marched through into the front hallway and was greeted with the sight of Beatrice. Oh. He had forgotten about her. Quickly he looked her up and down to see if she had had a rough a time as he did getting in when he noticed it. "Why aren't you wearing shoes?" Thenardier asked confused. "Why are you dressed like a chicken?" Beatrice fired back. He was just about to bark out a reply when the kid called again from the top of the stairs: "I'm up here you morons come and get me!" and anything other than the pure desire to murder the brat left his head. One look at Beatrice told him that she felt the exact same. They both turned and ran towards the stairs and then lost their footing and skid on some toy cars before tripping and landing right on them. Jesus f-

Gavroche did a little victory dance to himself as he watched the two old coots struggle to get off the ground. This was working way better then he thought it would. Quickly he got into position and lifted up the first of his weapons for the stairs. The man was the first one to come up as he thundered towards Gavroche with a roar of fury. With his heart beating faster than it ever did before, Gavroche let the weapon fly. The paint can hit him square in the face and he went down. Gavroche muffled a laugh at the sight. The woman was next, not even looking at him as she ran up the stairs. "Don't worry love I'll get him for you" she was saying as Gavroche let the second paint can fly. In a second, she was down on the ground in pain as well.

Quickly Gavroche used that time to wheel his final weapon for the staircase into place. He had taken Enjolras's desk chair because it was the biggest and filled it with the heaviest things that he could find. Uncle Combeferre's and Joly's medical books, Jehan's flowerpots, Feuilly's tools, Bahorel's and Grantaire's weights. He had piled it altogether on the chair and tied it enough with the rope so it would hold the pile for now when it was being moved into position but would become loose and fly all over the thieves when it came into contact with them. He waited until he heard pounding at the stairs- two sets of feet this time, not one, great two birds, one stone, and pushed it down the stairs. He heard their screams just before the crash.

The second that happened he turned and raced into Uncle Combeferre's room where the man had an extension of the landline on his desk. He had finally figured out what was wrong with the phone during his preparation and this was the only reason he hadn't used Aunt Musichetta's or Uncle Bahorel's guns straight away when dealing with them. Quickly dialling the emergency number he pretended to be Monsieur Mabuef and gave the Mabuef's address for the scene of the crime.

All that was done, now he just had to get them there.

Racing out of Uncle Combeferre's room, he raced past the stairs just as the two had finally reached the top of it, barely avoiding them as he jumped over the trip-wire. He reached the door leading to the attic just as he heard someone grunt and fall to the floor with a loud thud, but he didn't look back to check. He flung open the door and started running up the steps when he felt someone pull on his leg and he fell to the ground hard. He almost choked as the air got knocked out of his lungs as he met the stairs hard on his ribcage. Twisting around, he saw it was the woman who had a hold of his leg and was trying to drag him back to her. Gavroche stubbornly tried to escape her grip by trying to move further up the stairs when he saw it.

Jehan's mouse. Mr Checkers. Gavroche had lost him when he had tried to feed the animal by himself the first day he had been left by himself and he had been a little scared that the animal had run away when he hadn't been able to find him. But he hadn't! There he was on the step right above Gavroche watching the scene playing out below him with interest in its beady eyes. Pushing himself up, Gavroche stretched his arm out and scooped up the little animal before he could run away and twisted around and down to meet the woman. She was wearing a blouse with the top buttons undone despite the cold weather, exposing her breasts. Perfect. Leaning over, Gavroche quickly slid Mr Checkers onto her breasts and the little animal burrowed into the crack between them. The woman's eyes went wide as she realised what had happened and she let out the loudest shriek that Gavroche had ever heard and had immediately let go of him so she could attempt to get the mouse out. Immediately seizing the opportunity, Gavroche turned back around and ran up the stairs into the attic and towards the window that directly faced his treehouse. He quickly slid over the rope to it and scrambled in, immediately preparing himself for the next step.

It didn't take long.

Thenardier was fuming when he reached the window, Beatrice right at his back. How the fuck did this brat keep getting the better of him? He had never been more humiliated in his life. He couldn't find the kid, where the fuck was the kid?!

"I'm over here you dumb apes! You better get over here and stop me before I call the cops!"

Thenardier snapped his head up at the sound of the brat's voice and locked eyes with him from all the way over in a treehouse. There was a rope tied from a metal pole sticking out of the wall of the house here that led to the treehouse window itself, explaining how the brat got across there in the first place. He looked from it to the brat, and smirked. 'Oh, so that's your plan, you little brat', he thought. 'Well I've gotcha figured out.'

"Come on, let's get him!" Beatrice barked, turning to go back down through the house.

"No, no wait" he said quietly, grabbing her arm to prevent her from going any further. "Don't you see? That's his plan. That's just what he wants us to do. To go back downstairs through his 'funhouse' and get all torn up again."

"But he's going to call the cops!" Beatrice cried, starting to panic.

"From a treehouse?!" Thenardier questioned, scoffing when she blushed red in embarrassment when common sense finally caught up to her.

"Well come on" he grumbled grabbing a hold of the rope and started to pull himself along it, dangling three storeys up from the ground. "Let's play that kid at his own game." He didn't hear anything from Beatrice in reply to that but the dipping of the rope behind him told him that she was right behind him.

They were halfway there when they saw the kid again. Only this time he had a pair of garden shears. For a second all Thenardier could do was stare in horror as the brat brought them up to the rope and opened them, placing the rope in between the blades and smirked. That smirk, it was that same smirk that he had on his face when he shot at him at the very start of the night. It was the exact same smirk that Eponine had had when she found a way to destroy a rival or con an unsuspecting idiot. At that moment he didn't see the kid anymore. All he saw was his eldest child, at eight years old who had just found a way to con the patrons of their old hotel into donating to charities that didn't exist. The same glint in the eyes, the slightly raised chin, the tilt to the head just as the smirk was starting to vanish. It was uncanny.

Then reality caught up to him again and he realised where he was and what was about to happen and panic set in.

"Go back!" Thenardier cried to his wife, "go back." Quickly they tried to hurry back but they had only gone a couple of paces when they felt one side of the rope falling and they fell with it. All Thenardier could do was hold on to the rope for dear life to stop himself from falling to the ground and most likely killing himself, even as he was heading towards the brick wall with no way to stop. They then hit said wall with a sickening to even hear it 'thud' before letting go of the rope and falling the thankfully shorter distance to the ground. He allowed himself a moment to breath before he forced himself to his feet, dragging Beatrice up with him and following the monster of a child as he ran out into the street.

It wasn't until that they were out on the street that Thenardier saw exactly where the kid was planning on leading them to and his brain kicked into gear. Beckoning to Beatrice, he turned and ran the other way. This time he was going to come out on top.

* * *

Gavroche panted as he headed for the basement door of the Mabuef's. The couple had gone to Australia for the holidays to visit their children like they did every year and usually they wouldn't be back until March. Only this time they had moved out to Australia permanently and didn't plan on coming back in the spring. Uncle Joly said that they wanted to spend the last few years of their lives somewhere warm. Gavroche didn't understand that at all, who wouldn't want to spend Christmas in the snow?

Using the key that he taken earlier on, he quickly let himself and shut the door behind him before running down the basement steps and into the pool of water in the room. Which was strange even for him, but he was in too much of a rush to do anything about it. He quickly raced up the steps that lead into the rest of the house and flung open the door that lead to the kitchen.

Only to freeze in terror when he saw them standing right in front of him.

"Hey buddy" the woman said, just as the man grabbed him. He struggled and kicked, but the man was bigger and stronger then him and soon Gavroche found himself hung up on the coat hook, unable to get away, while the burglars were grinning at him terrifyingly. He was never more scared in his life.

"Oh, you caused us a lot of trouble you little brat" the man growled, pressing the tip of his knife into the side of Gavroche's throat as he tried desperately to move away from the pain, but that only made the man laugh and press it in harder.

"What do you want to do to him darling?" the woman laughed as she leant in closer to him. "I kinda want to drop heavy boxes on him and see how he likes it."

The man growled at that, "I wanna set him on fire, break every bone in his body." Gavroche couldn't help the whimper of pain that escaped his mouth as he twisted the knife in further and he felt a burning sensation.

"Yeah, let's do that" the woman breathed, "but first - I - want to - bite off - each - of - his - little - fingers" she snarled, leaning closer and closer, bringing one of his hands up to her mouth, despite his best efforts to rip it out of her grasp.

Suddenly Gavroche became aware of the person behind the burglars. The person then brought down something onto the man's head with a successful crack and he toppled to the ground out cold. He quickly did the same thing as the woman spun around and soon she was joining her partner on the ground.

For a long moment Gavroche stared at his victims/would-be-torturers/possible would-be-murders before looking up at his sudden hero.

"Well you certainly know how to incite outrage" the man said peeling his hat off his head. It was the carefully styled curls that gave his identity away.

"It's you!" he cried, looking at the man from the church.

Said man rolled his eyes at that introduction. "Yes, it's me you little idiot. And you're damn lucky it is too. They could have and would have killed you. They were probably planning on it too. What did you _do_ to them?" he asked almost in horror as he stared at the two moaning people on the ground.

"Gave them hell" Gavroche grinned cheekily as the man lifted him off the coat hook and set him back on the ground. He almost stumbled a little as his legs felt like jelly, after all of that running and kicking but his hero kept a hand on his shoulder to help keep him steady.

"That I don't doubt" the man muttered as the sound of sirens filled the air.

"Come on, let's go" he muttered, pulling Gavroche towards the door that he had entered through.

They managed to evade the cops pulling up just about and Gavroche let them in through the back door at home to avoid being seen, the danger was gone after the man - he thinks it was the man? had set off the blow torch trap. His companion let out a low whistle as he walked around the kitchen and living room, seeing the triggered traps that he had set.

"Holy fuck" he breathed from his position by the window, his attention now turned to watching the police cart the would-be-thieves out of another victim's house and into a squad car, "you are definitely Eponine's child."

"You knew my mom?" Gavroche couldn't help but speak up. In front of him, the man froze like he had forgotten that Gavroche was even there.

"Y-yeah" he admitted after a moment, "we were good friends. Really good friends. She was like a sister to me. And I've got to say kid, you're a lot bigger than you were when I saw you last."

"That was only a couple of hours ago!" Gavroche cried in confusion. He couldn't have grown that much in a couple of hours, could he?"

"No, I'm talking the last time I properly met you" the man scoffed. "You wouldn't remember. You were only around a month old at the time. That was the last time I saw you before today."

"Why?" Gavroche couldn't help but ask. If he was such a good friend of his mom's, why was he only properly meeting him now? And how come nobody had ever mentioned him before?

The man then stiffened even more. He was like a statue. "Life happened" he said eventually. "Shit happened and I had to go away for a while. I'm only back recently."

Gavroche said nothing, feeling like that was all he was going to get out of him. He did wonder though if 'go away for a while' meant for work or prison. Prison probably.

"And it looks like the cops are gone" the man grinned, turning around to face him. "Which means that I can go now. I'd love to stay, but chances are I'll just set off another one of those most likely painful traps. You on the other hand would know how to deal with them."

With that, as quickly as he arrived, his saviour is turning to leave, pulling his hat back onto his head and running a hand through his hair, similar to the way most of his uncles do it and he has to blink hard before he does something stupid like cry because he missed them so much and all he wanted to do after what had just happened was to hug his dad until the fear died down.

"Wait!" Gavroche couldn't help but cry as the man reached the door. "What's your name?"

The man turned to look back at him and for a second Gavroche thought he wasn't going to answer him. Then he spoke so quietly that Gavroche almost didn't hear it, "Montparnasse."

Then he was gone, the sound of snow crunching that was growing fainter by the second and the footprints left as the only indicators that he had ever been there to begin with.

* * *

The house was dead quiet on Christmas morning when Courfeyrac let himself in. It was almost unnatural. When you live in a house with twelve other people, silence was a bit of a rarity. Especially if one of the people you live with is a hyperactive eight-year-old.

Courfeyrac felt a flash of fear run through him. The house was deathly quiet and spotlessly clean. It was nothing like the carnage he had expected he'd be coming back to. Something had to be wrong. Why was it so quiet? Gavroche was an early bird he always was, when the sun was up so was he. And yet there was no sign at all of his little boy. What if Gavroche wasn't here? What if something had happened to him? What if he was lying hurt somewhere in the house and was unable to call for help? What if someone had broken in and taken him? Scenario after scenario flashed through his mind as he left his bags at the door and quietly walked through the house, his eyes examining every single nook and cranny, in the hopes of finding some sign of Gavroche. His fear was making his chest tighten and his throat close up as every second passed without any sign of him.

Then he turned the corner into the front room and at once it felt like a heavy weight was lifted off his chest and that he could breathe again.

Because sitting there on the ground in front of the big Christmas tree that Bahorel, Bossuet and Feuilly had worked hard to get (and if Courf was being honest with himself, had quite possibly gotten it illegally) was Gavroche.

For a moment all he could do was stare, his eyes eagerly drinking in the sight of his baby boy. Physically Gavroche seemed fine. Well the bits of him that weren't covered in his pyjamas, for all he knew he could be hiding some horrific injuries under his clothes (if there was then he could get Combeferre to check them out). He seemed perfectly fine and healthy. He had been left on his own for three days and he was fine. Gavroche was fine.

"Gav" he breathed softly, trying so hard not to startle his little boy too much, though he could tell he was unsuccessful in that endeavour, giving in the way he jerked in surprise and scrambled up onto his feet as he turned around to look at him. For a few seconds all they could do was stare at each other.

"Oh Gav, I am so, so, sorry" he breathed, slowly, hesitantly taking a step forward, ready to step back at any second if Gavroche didn't want him near him. Gavroche just stared at him, not reacting at all, not giving any indication as to how he was feeling. Slowly, he took another step forward, then another before stopping. The distance between them was halved now, but he was going to let Gavroche choose if he wanted to walk the final distance over to him. Gavroche could choose if he wanted Courfeyrac near him at all.

"I mean it Gav, I am so sorry for everything" Courfeyrac began, eager to get it all out. "I'm sorry for shouting at you, for upsetting you like that. I'm sorry for leaving without saying goodbye properly. I'm so sorry Gav, I tried to come home as soon as I could when I found out what happened. I've been all over the place the last few days trying to get back to you. I missed you so much Gav, so, so much."

For the longest moment of Courfeyrac's life all Gav did was stare at him. Courfeyrac felt his entire body freeze up in fear. What if Gavroche didn't forgive him? What if he was angry over being left behind? He looked fine but who knows what had happened to him over the past few days and how he felt about it.

Just when Courfeyrac was genuinely starting to panic that Gav was never going to forgive him for what happened, he heard someone getting off the floor. Snapping back to reality, Courfeyrac felt the tiniest threads of hope curl into him as Gavroche silently walked closer to him. When he was only a step or two away he flung himself at Courfeyrac, who bent down to meet him.

Gav's arms were so tightly wrapped around him it almost felt like a choke hold but he didn't care. He wrapped his own arms around Gav just as tight, but taking care not to hurt him, as he ran one hand through his little boys' blond curls that he missed so much over the last two and a half weeks.

"Oh Gav" he breathed in rushed relief, "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry for everything. Thank God you're ok, I was so scared." Gavroche didn't say anything in response but he tightened his hold on Courfeyrac.

Finally, after a long time they parted and Gavroche finally spoke.

"Where are the others?"

"Oh Gav I'm sorry, they wanted to come but-" what he was going to finish saying was cut off by the sound of keys turning and then the next thing he knew the voices of his friends were filling the halls.

"Oh thank God Gav, you're ok!" Enjolras said in relief, before he bent down to hug Gav. He wasn't the only one as Cosette was right behind him embracing Gav as soon as Enjolras had let go.

"Oh God Gav I am so, so, so, sorry. I will make it up to you I promise. There's no excuse for what we did we know, but we are so sorry" Cosette babbled as she checked him over, looking for any bumps or bruises on the child, Marius and Combeferre each waiting for their own turn to check Gavroche over as Jehan turned to him.

"So I take it by the suitcases in the hall that you only got back shortly before we did?"

"Yeah" he admitted, too relieved that Gavroche was ok to say anything else and partly too stunned to believe that after all that he went through trying to get back as quickly as possible, he only beat the others after they had taken what he assumed was the Christmas Eve flight by a few minutes. Jehan opened his mouth to reply when he was cut off by sound of Courfeyrac's ringtone. Quickly fishing it out of his pocket he gave Jehan a quick apologetic smile as he saw who it was on the screen.

"It's Dad, he and mum are probably wondering about 'Roche, I-"

"Yeah, yeah, go on" Jehan agreed, as Courfeyrac quickly stepped out to the kitchen to give himself some privacy as he answered the call.

"Hey dad."

"Well you're certainly much calmer today. Get back alright?" He heard his dad chuckle down the phone.

"Yeah got back just a few minutes ago. Gav's fine, house seems fine, looks like everything's ok."

"Well that's a relief" his dad replied with genuine happiness in his voice. "How you get back anyway? Did you catch a connecting flight from London?"

"Oh no actually. This man, I stopped him from getting robbed and when he heard that I was trying to get to Paris he offered me a lift as a thank you. He was driving to Paris from London and dropped me off."

"Well that was nice of him" his dad commented surprised.

"Yeah I was shocked too. I guess that Christmas makes people more charitable. Yeah, his name was Felix Tholomyes."

He expected some witty reply or other type of comment from the other end of the line but all he got was silence.

"Hello? Dad? You still there?"

"Felix Tholomyes, huh? Anything else, you know about him?" His dad's voice sounded strange, almost choked in a way.

"Well, he's a lawyer, works at Goldstein and Co. as a senior partner. Used to work in my firm actually. He's originally from Lyon and he went to the university there to study law."

"And did he ever work in Highbournes' as a junior partner there back in the 80's?" His dad continued in the same choked voice.

"Um yeah" Courfeyrac frowned confusion lacing through his tone of voice. "Do you know him?"

"Yeah, yeah I do" came the incredibly shaky reply on the other end of the line. "Courf, that man is your father. Your biological father."

* * *

Javert watched quietly from his living room window as the last of those insufferable morons went into their home and the door was closed. Looks like he was right. He always was.

He had been suspicious when he ran into the boy at the cemetery all alone. He had thought that those lot were going to New York for the holidays. He remembered the drunk and the hippie saying something about it a few weeks beforehand. Yet there the child was all alone while neither his father nor any of those buffoons that he called aunts and uncles were anywhere to be seen.

He had tried to keep an eye on the boy, but he had gotten called into work on an emergency and he had to go in. The law and crime don't take a break simply because Javert had his suspicions about one little boy. Those scum of thieves had been robbing more and more homes, clearly taking advantage of their owners going away on holiday to flaunt the law.

He had caught them in the end those bastards. Really, he should have suspected that his rather pathetic excuse of a DNA sharer had been a part of the scheme. And not just a part of it, the ring-leader!

It's been over forty years and he still hasn't figured out just how he was related to such immoral beasts. His parents, his brother, his sister-in-law, all the lowest of the low. All belonging in prison, pure vermin the lot of them.

He still hadn't figured out just how Eponine had turned out so good. And Azelma too, if Eponine's tales on her sister were true.

His poor sweet nieces. Young, hard-workers, full of hope, full of potential, all of it snuffed away so fast. Azelma because her parent's neglect and cruelty. Yes, she was sick, but if her parents had paid for the medication when the disease was in its early stages then she would never have lost her life to it. And then poor Eponine because of that horrific crash. It had been days before news of what had happened had reached him. He had been out of the city training some cadets down in Lyon at the time. He had dropped everything when the news reached him and raced back to the city, but despite his best efforts he was still too late for the funeral. He remembered that it was pouring rain that day. He remembered standing at the grave staring in horror at the freshly dug grave with mounds of fresh flowers and soft toys piled on top.

_'In loving memory of Eponine Thenardier. Sister, friend, mother. Gone but forever in our hearts.'_

A small part of him died when he read that inscription.

He searched for ages trying to find out what had happened to her child. She was still pregnant around that time, he had spoken to her the day before her death and she had mentioned that she was going to be glad when the baby was born, so he knew that the child hadn't been born yet. He was incredibly worried. The papers and anything else he accessed in regard to it never said anything about her child dying and he had been beyond worried for the child. What if the something drastic had happened to the baby? He had to ensure that the child was safe and well. Both for Eponine's sake and his own.

Eventually he had found out that the child - a little boy - had been born during an emergency caesarean and had been taken home by his father. Unfortunately, he didn't have any information on the father himself. Eponine had never told him a lot him as she thought that he would find a way to arrest the boy. Not that he would have, well unless he had found proof that the boy had been committing crimes . . . but if he was then he had to be arrested. It was the law!

It had frustrated him to no end. What if the father couldn't cope and shoved the boy into foster care and the child grew up all alone without knowing any of his family? What if the father was abusive and he had no one to turn to?

He just wanted to make sure that his grand-nephew was ok. And it was killing him that all he was meeting was dead end after dead end.

If he had known any of her friends then the situation would have been much easier, but Eponine had always been vague whenever she was telling him stories about her friends. He had never understood it until he had heard about the bastard who had been in the car that crashed into her. He was part of the group that helped steal it and apparently had been a friend of Eponine's. And not just her friend, her roommate too.

Once he had heard that, for the first time in his life Javert had gone to a pub and had gotten flat out drunk like any common scum. He was too depressed and angry about the situation to care.

After a while he had been forced to give up on the search. It had come up cold. He knew nothing about the child's father or any of Eponine's friends that could have helped him. Her social media accounts had already been taken down by the time he had thought to try them and the third person who had lived with her and the scum involved in her death had moved out shortly after the accident and their neighbours didn't have a forwarding address or any information on them themselves. It had killed him especially when he didn't know if the child was ok or not, but he had no other leads to go on.

So, he went to work, solved crimes, gained promotions, fought with those ridiculous radicals across the street. May have called social services on them a couple of times. He had valid causes too! They weren't looking out for the boy's best interests! Going to dangerous protests, getting into fights, the horror of that Halloween incident, all proof that they shouldn't be allowed near children, let alone help raise one! But every time they managed to trick the social worker into thinking that they had the child's best interests at heart. Well Javert knew differently.

And he'd swear the father of two of them, the insufferable ringleader of those lawbreakers Enjolras and his sister Cosette's father, looked suspiciously like that Jean Valjean, but he never got a close enough look at the man to tell.

And then last night, a breakthrough. After seven years, a new lead. When he was talking to the child - and seriously did they actually abandon the child on Christmas? The boy had mentioned his mother had died in a car crash and had been buried beside her sister who had died of an illness, Javert felt his throat constrict and a small flicker of hope bloom. Unfortunately, the child had left before he could question him more but for the first time he felt like he was truly looking at the child.

Yes there similarities to his father, but he had been bowled away by how much the boy looked like Eponine and Azelma. The few times he did notice before then he had brushed it off as a coincidence, but if he was Eponine's child, Azelma's nephew . . .

He was getting ahead of himself, Javert reminded himself sternly, it could still just be a coincidence. That was a massive graveyard and really the boy's mother could be anyone. Plenty people died of illnesses and car crashes. But now he had names to search with. Courfeyrac, Grantaire, Enjolras, the whole lot of them. He'd dig around and see what he could find. For the first time in years Javert felt a small flicker of hope light up in his chest.

Because if that boy really was his grand-nephew then Javert would do everything in his power to ensure that the child would have the life Eponine would have wanted for him: safe, secure and with a proper role model.

* * *

Grantaire stretched out on the couch with a massive yawn, a drink in his hand as Bahorel and Feuilly messed around with the tv, trying to get something up on it. All's well that ends well. Gavroche was thankfully fine and didn't appear traumatised by them forgetting him, him and Courf had seemed to have thankfully made up if the gamin being snuggled into Courfeyrac's side right now, eagerly examining what Courf had bought him in New York was any indication although Courf was acting kinda strange (he hoped that he still wasn't mad. Angry Courf was actually kind of scary.), the house was still in one piece and his alcohol was untouched. For once everything seemed to be ok. Now if only Bahorel and Feuilly would stop whatever messing around the two of them seemed intent on doing so he could watch some crappy Christmas specials while getting a nice tipsy buzz going before he tried to convince Enjolras to give him his Christmas present earlier than tonight. He knew it would be a good one if Apollo's internet history was anything to go by. And hopefully there was would be red and leather involved.

Lots of red and leather.

"Ok guys what are you doing?" Cosette finally spoke up. The rest of them had been perfectly content to talk amongst themselves and wait to see what the two of them were doing, but obviously the constant messing had distracted Cosette from her examination of her favourite statue, as she was continuously checking it for something ever since she arrived back and had finished checking over Gavroche.

"Ok, well, the thing is" Feuilly started nervously, "a couple of months ago, a few weird things started happening around the house while we were asleep right?" At the agreement of everyone gathered in the room, Feuilly continued on. "So, the thing is, Bahorel and I set up cameras in the living and dining room, kitchen, garden and hallways trying to figure out what was going on. We didn't put anything in the bedrooms or bathrooms!" he continued on hurriedly at the shocked locks that was on everyone else's faces, "and once we figured out what was going on, we forgot all about it. We weren't watching any of your private lives we promise!"

Everyone looked a bit sceptical at the news until finally Bossuet broke the silence.

"Well did you at least figure out what was causing the weird going-ons?"

"Yeah, actually" Bahorel snorted as he finally stopped fidgeting with the tv and grabbed the remote. "You were sleep-walking. I think that medication you were taking for the insomnia at the time caused it, because it started after you started taking it and stopped once you switched to a different brand. But yeah, once it stopped we kinda just forgot about the cameras. Good thing too, I kinda want to know what Roche got up to while we were gone."

In between the cries of agreement from everyone else and Bossuet's demands to know more about the sleep-walking, Grantaire couldn't help but notice that the gamin was starting to look very nervous. Like 'I'm very guilty and have just been caught doing something I shouldn't' type nervous. And the way he had slid off the couch and was slowly making his way towards the door, trying hard to avoid being noticed definitely had alarms going off in Grantaire's head. Just what had the gamin been doing while they were gone? The house seemed fine and -

His inner musings were cut off by Cosette's shrieks and Courfeyrac and surprisingly Combeferre's swears. Redirecting his attention to the tv, Grantaire watched the scene playing out in front of him. It was the hallway, and the date and time on the screen shown that it was last night. He watched as Gavroche ran up the stairs and barely a minute had passed before a man and a woman ran into the hallway. They actually looked vaguely familiar though Grantaire couldn't put his finger on how he knew them. He watched as they ran towards the centre of the hallway and then promptly trip on some toy cars that he recognised as Bossuet's. The pair then got up and then they watched them each get smacked in the face by paint cans and then flung down the stairs by a chair filled with paraphilia. Finally, they made their way up the stairs and both them and Gav vanished out of sight of the camera.

There was nothing going on in the hallway after that, though after speeding through to around forty minutes later, Gavroche appeared again on screen and seemed to be tidying up. But none of them were really paying attention to that. They were all just staring blank faced at the screen. Grantaire could feel his drink slipping out of his fingers and he only remembered to catch it at the last possible second. Finally it was Joly who spoke up.

"Um, Gav? Do you wanna explain what was going on there?"

Then like the doctor had flipped a switch in all their heads as they all turned around and stared at the kid who was halfway out the door when he was pinned with the weight of all their stares.

Gavroche just stood there. For the first time in his life he didn't know how to talk his way out of this.

So he ran.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well there it is! And I have to say that when I had this idea back in March (St. Patrick's day actually, I remember the date because of that) I had no idea that deciding to delve into my muse and actually write it would spawn this creation. Nearly 30,000 words written and no doubt the most that I have ever written in my life so far for one thing, and three months of on and off dedication to this (cause I did have to put this aside for a bit to focus on my exams and my placement for college too, you know, real life demands, but I passed them all so I'm happy enough), including losing whole scenes that I had written either because my laptop or the internet was acting up (long ones too, those were dark days and I may have struggled when rewriting them so they may not be as detailed as the other scenes here) and now it's finally done.  
> I hope that you like what I did with the characters. I tried to keep them as in character as possible, although I'm not sure whether I'm mixing up canon and fanon. Probably did. Regardless I tried to make sure that I made it as accurate as I could. When it comes to Gavroche here, I tried to balance it between his carefree personality in the canon where he's able to take care of himself and survive shown when he can take care of himself just fine when everyone forgot him and when he defended himself against the Thenardiers and a childhood naivety where he feels like his family didn't want him so they left him. Because Gavroche's situation here is different from canon as he wasn't turned out into the streets at a young age here. Here he had a loving family his whole life and so he's hurt when he thinks that they left him behind on purpose and he's pretending that he doesn't care about them because of it. Add to the fact that he's eight here where in canon he's twelve so he's not as emotionally mature too.  
> I'm also going to be using a theory that I saw on tumblr (the post was made by annaobyrne) that Courfeyrac is another one of Felix's kids that he abandoned when his mother was pregnant with him. I mean it is possible, Courfeyrac is introduced as being just like Felix except that he's an actual decent person and most characters in Les Mis seem to be connected to one another in some way or another. So I've decided o use this theory too, partly because I like it and partly because when I first saw the photo stills for Les Mis, I was convinced that Enjolras, Cosette and Gavroche were all related and I'm bringing that to life here.  
> So in regards to the Les Mis AU series that this is now apart of, I really tried to make sure that I didn't leave any plot holes or anything like that here while also trying to leave little leads for future little oneshots that I will be doing in regards to this series (but they will be much shorter than this one, cause this took up so much of my time and I'm almost brain dead writing out these notes, I don't think I'll have it in me to do another 30k oneshot for a long time). Before inspiration struck for this fic I had been starting to write the first part of that series, which will be longer than this one, but it will be posted in chapters so it may take some time before I'm ready to post that but I will also be doing those oneshots in between writing it to give me a break.  
> So that's all, please drop me a review about what you think please, I'd really appreciate it! Hope you enjoyed it!  
> So if there is anything mentioned in here that you kinda want to see how it happened or even just a suggestion of your own for this series then mention it in a review, I would love to hear it


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